A Cold Reunion
by Overseerneversleeps
Summary: When environmental scientists start being murdered by a mysterious assailant in modern day London, the Twelfth Doctor investigates the crimes. While doing so, he enlists the help of his old friend, a certain human named Sarah Jane. Sequel to "From Afar", though that doesn't need to be read to understand this. Part 1 of The Twelfth Hour Series.
1. Chapter 1: It Always Starts With Coffee

_(Author's note: Welcome to A Cold Reunion, my next Doctor Who fic. Due to the popularity of my previous fic "From Afar", I have decided to write a sequel, including one of the most beloved companions, Sarah Jane. As a huge fan of Sarah Jane and the late Elizabeth Sladen, I would have loved to see her interact with the 12th Doctor. This is my imagning of that. As for cannon, this takes place after Clara leaves at the end of Death in Heaven. This contain spoilers from that episode. This is also related to my previous fic, "From Afar", however you do not have to read it to understand this one. It would undoubtedly be helpful though. I would like to thank my friend Poes Daughter for all of her help and encouragement with this fic, as well as Feline38 for her help brainstorming. I do not own Doctor Who or it's characters. Last but not least, read and review. Reviews are food! Feed me, feed me now! Enjoy)_

Mathematic scribbles filled George Paxton's chalkboard. To the uneducated eye, they looked like a confusing, nonsensical, collage of nothing in particular. The ramblings of a mad man perhaps.

Said uneducated eye would be very wrong. George Paxton was not mad. He was a revolutionary. A maverick of his field. He finished scribbling another notation near the the bottem of the crammed board. He back stepped and meticulously looked over his work with steely eyes, then returned, smudged out a mistake with his thumb, and rewrote. This had to be perfect. There was no room for error.

George was a portly sort of man. Older, and with a round face, his greying hair seemed to fit him well. It made him look scholarly, fitting for his occupation. Many of his friends likened him to Winston Churchill, by both looks and attitude. He never minded 'Church' being his nickname. If he had his way, he would be just as famous as his namesake very soon.

His London studio apartment reflected this ambition. Some may call him eccentric, but he preferred driven. Against one wall was a small, twin bed. Spread out on top of it were a multitude of books. Some were dedicated to Physics, others Environmental Science, some even Experimental Theorys from various fields of study. Across the room was a kitchen with moderate counter space, this too cluttered. Tools and other implements lay tossed about; from hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, drills and rivet guns to saws, a wielding torch, a nail gun, and a soldering iron, he had it all. In amongst all of this were seemingly useless items. Random copper wires were mixed with long pieces of pipe, next to piles of nails and screws. A dismantled toaster sat next to a sawed up fire extinguisher, piled on top of two car batteries. The only working appliance was the coffee maker, which was surrounded by empty cups and crushed cans of energy drinks.

There was a couch next to a coffee table. This area was also cluttered beyond belief. Piles of note books and crumpled rolls of paper lay across the cushions, and the table was coated in blueprints like a second skin.

There was a dining table in between the living space and the kitchen. On this was a large cylindrical object. It was built out of metal piping and ended in funnels on both ends. These were attached to hoses, which were intertwined around the main piping. Both were hooked to a pair of fire extinguishers, that were haphazardly wired to a primitive switchboard. Attached to the main console was a heat pump torn from a mini-fridge. Hooked via another hose was a shiny metal tank the size of a baseball. There was a blue light that flickered on it, and blinked in regular intervals. This looked rather out of place with the rest of the objects this contraption was built out of, comparatively high-tech ofof the rest mundane household materials.

George Paxton's masterpiece was almost complete. All he would need to do was test fire it. He had absolute faith it would work. All the math was right, even if the science was experimental. If there was ever a person that could make this breakthrough, it was him.

His thoughts of grandeur were abruptly interrupted by a loud pounding on his front door. He looked at his watch. It was nearly two in the morning. Who would come to his door at this hour? There was never anyone else in the building awake at this hour, and if they were they were up to no good, usually drug users or worse. After three knocks it stopped.

He stared at his door for a few moments. There had been a rash of burglaries just a few blocks away. The scientist was not going to let just anyone come waltzing in, not with his creation just sitting on the table. He may have been a bit strange, but he was not stupid. He waited, looking down at the door crack. Even though there was no more knocking, he could see the dark shadows of feet beyond the door. He could hear an odd ticking sound, like some one tapping two marbles together. It was strange to him, because it sounded almost... reptilian. He had worked in a laboratory many years ago, around Iguanas, Monitor Lizards, and Geckos. It was quite common to hear that same high pitched clicking when they were agitated.

The pounding started again, this time faster and heavier, shaking the whole door.

"Who is it? What do you want?" he shouted, fear creeping into his voice. He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket, and crept toward the door. Quickly, he dialed the local police station, and got ready to press send. If whomever this was tried anything funny, he'd have the cops here in a second.

He reached the door, and listened. In addition to that strange ticking, he could hear labored, raspy breathing. Perhaps the man on the other side was hurt or sick, and needed help.

"Or he's here to rob you George," he thought to himself. If he was hurt he would have called out for help, not just stood there. Maybe it was a friend of his here to pull a prank. If he was, George didn't appreciate it. Still, there was only one way to find out who this was. Mustering up his courage, he unlocked the door, and turned the handle.

The door creaked open, revealing a very tall man. He was in fact, almost a half a foot taller then George. He was dressed in robes similar to a monk, with a hood up over his face, completely obscuring what he looked like. His barrel chest moved up and down with his rasping breath, and the hood silently looked down at George.

"Ca-can I help you?" George asked. He knew he sounded terrified, but he couldn't help it. This man was very intimidating. He looked like he could crack his head open just by flexing his bicep. He said nothing, instead pushed George out of the way, walking right into his apartment.

"Hey! I didn't say you could come in!" he shouted. The big man's head swivelled, like he was looking for something.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" he grabbed at the mans back.

Suddenly, the robed man whirled around, catching his wrist in a vice grip. He cried out as pain spiked up his arm. Another gloved hand grabbed the front of his shirt, and shoved him backwards. George stumbled and fell to the ground, his phone smashing on the floor.

Silently, his assailant held out one finger, as though to tell him to stay put. The scientist was not about to argue.

Once again, the huge man stomped forward slowly looking around. He saw his head turn to the main table, and he started walking toward it. Toward George's invention. His masterpiece.

He walked up to it, and put his hands on it. He violently pulled the small, baseball sized tank off the side, and turned around.

Anger suddenly boiled in George. That was his. He had worked for over a year on his invention. Hours and hours were spent doing math and fiddling with blue prints to try and make something sensible out of practically nothing. All he had at his deposal were scrap piles of garbage and what ever he could scroung from the broken electronics people threw away. Everything except what that man just took, the only advanced peice of hardware in the whole device. What right did he have? To take apart his creation.

George balled up his fists and stood up. He ran at the robed robber, intending to beat him senseless to get back what was taken. He wasn't about to give it up without a fight.

He went to throw a punch, but the giant intercepted it with a fore arm before he even came close. Silently, his other hand shot forward, the big fist cracking into his jaw. Immediately George hit the floor, the whole room spinning around. He felt like his stomach was in his throat, and everything was foggy.

He looked up at the big man in front of him. One fist held out in front of him, he grunted and hissed audibly, the clicking sound growing louder. He pulled back the sleeve of his robe, revealing some sort of gun barrel attached to his wrist.

George did not even have time to scream as bright, blue light engulfed him. It would have been pretty, were it not frigid. At first the frost shot agony into his whole body, chilling him to the bone. Then he felt nothing at all, every fiber of his body going numb. His head thundered, as he fell back. His final thought was to his creation, while the big, cloaked man walked toward the door, and how he would never get the chance to complete it. Everything started to fade on the edges, and he tried to raise his arm at the theif, failing beneath the cold's oppression. Everything went black. George Paxton was no more.

* * *

A strange grinding tore into the silence of an alley in the center of Londen, England. In a city so busy at mid day, none of the people in cars or walking down the streets gave it any second glance, not with the daily grind in full swing. Slowly but surely, a dark blue Police Box phased into existence, landing with a dull thud in the alley. The Tardis had arrived, and its owner stepped out the front door.

One word to describe him was dapper. His black waistcoat was sleek, with a pair of matching pants and hardy, well made boots. His countenance was stern, with an age marked face, a large, hooked nose, and a stern mouth that had frowned all too often in recent days.

His bright blue eyes were piercing. Even though they belonged to an older looking man, they spoke of something ancient. They showed him for what he really was, a man who had seen a thousand years twice over, and not all of them were good. These eyes were topped with a pair of aggressive looking eye brows, that could probably intimidate almost anyone. His greying spikes of hair completed his older look, making him appear quite dignified.

The Doctor adjusted the collar of his coat, and the buttons of his white undershirt. He had landed in London, November of 2014. Two thirty in the afternoon. Perfect. Exactly what he was trying for. He locked the door to his time machine.

He walked out from the alley, and began down the street. London was always so... clogged. People hurrying every which way in cars or on foot, talking on phones and shouting for cabs. Never stopping, never sleeping, never sitting still. Then again though, human lives were short. Of course they did everything fast.

He was a man on a mission this day. A coffee mission. He needed a break from all the excitement. He had just come from a 'relaxing vacation' on Plujovex 8, a vacation that entailed hunting down a renegade cyborg that had grown a penchant for incineration. Not the thing he had in mind to relax.

So now he was here, so that perhaps he could get a cup of coffee and get out of his own head for twenty minutes. He needed that, badly. It was the silence of having no one in the Tardis with him that got to him the most. It was the quiet moments that ate him away slowly.

His mind wandered to Clara Oswald. She was probably happy right now, with her boyfriend Danny, preparing for the Holiday season. Her and PE, as he called him, were likely blissfully enjoying the coming days. He could assume Clara thought the same about him, that he was back on Gallifrey becoming a king, or whatever happy fantasy her little head could conjure about what he may or may not be doing. It was a cheery dream, and a lie she did not realize she was telling herself.

He shouldn't have lied to her. He should have told her the hard facts. Gallifrey, his home planet, was still gone, lost in some pocket universe somewhere in time and space. It was like trying to find a needle in a planet made out of haystacks. Actually, that was easier. With the needle, one knew it was actually there. With Gallifrey, for all he knew, it was destroyed, and gone forever. Maybe, The Master had lied.

He, or in this case_ she,_ had lied before. Why he chose to believe this incarnation of the maniacal Time Lord that Gallifrey had returned he did not know. Perhaps it was pure desperation, or some disturbed sense of hope. What ever it was , he was kicking himself for it now. He should have known. Yet still, when he flew to the coordinates and open the door, half of him expected to see that gargantuan red planet looking back at him. When all he saw was the empty black of space and the winking of distant stars, it had broken both of his hearts beyond all recompense.

He shook his head and continued walking. All of this pondering wasn't doing him any good. It rarely did, but that didn't stop him. He looked about a bit, finding himself in an area with mostly small shops and restaurants. There had to be a decent coffee shop around here somewhere.

Abruptly, he started rifling through his pockets. Other than a yo-yo, his sonic screwdriver, and a cigarette case full of jelly babies he only had twenty Kru-naries, currency only usable about five thousand years from now. He needed some money first.

After another few minutes of walking, he came across an ATM machine outside of a convenience store. He looked both ways, to be sure no one was paying attention. People rarely seem to on Earth, or any other planet with large citys. So engrossed in their own lives, noticing the subtle was not the population at large's strong point.

He dug around in his pockets, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. A long, metal, wand like tool with a bright green light on the end, it was the most useful item in the Doctor's possession. He pressed the small button on top, and the tool warbled loudly. The tip flashed a few times, and the screen of the ATM winked and pixilated. It beeped, and bills of cash flooded out of the opening.

The Doctor scooped it up, and quickly counted it. Two thousand dollars. That should be enough for some coffee. Actually, it looked like more than enough. He hoped. He could never really tell...

He walked down the street farther, finding a small little coffee shop on the corner. It looked... cozy. Like the sort of place one would sit down and read a book or relax after a long day of work. Perfect for his current situation.

He walked in, a small bell ringing upon his arrival, and the pleasant smell of freshly ground coffee beans wafted his way. This place was tiny by many standards near by shops. There were around six small tables, each with a pair of chairs by them. At the far end was a counter where baristas made a variety of drinks. A single T.V hung from the ceiling near the counter, blaring the local news channel. It was empty save for a single other patron ticking away on a laptop near the counter. This was good. Perfect actually. No one to have any awkward conversations with.

As he walked up, a young man at the counter shouted to him.

"Hey mate, what can I get ya?" he asked. The Docter gave him an exasperated look.

"Coffee!" he replied, his thick Scottish brogue leaking into his speech. Wasn't it obvious what he came in here for? It wasn't like he was going to order a car at a coffie shop.

"What kind? We're having a special on a double triple shot, iced, extra creamy, quadruple whipped, mocha latte," The Doctor shook his head. He had forgotten how ridiculous coffee orders were in this time period. Thank God people would be going back to basics by 2098.

"The hot kind. Preferably black," he said dryly.

"You got it. Have a seat, we'll get it to you in a minute."

The Doctor nodded, and walked over to the table in the corner, near the front window. He sat down, and waited. It didn't take long for his cup to arrive. He almost instantly took a swig from it. Nice and bitter, just how he liked it.

His sharp eyes stared down into the dark liquid, and his intense brows furrowed. He had to have missed something. In order for The Master, or _Mistress_ now because he had regenerated into a woman this go around, to come back, Gallifrey had to be intact. But, how was he able to hop through the pocket universe into this one? It took an incredible amount of energy. Literal energy. A pocket universe could drain a Tardis in mere seconds. According to the Time Lords, when he was moving Gallifrey he was trapping it in a single moment in time. It would be in stasis, basically a localized Time Loop of the same millisecond repeating itself over and over forever. Or at least until some outside force stopped it. The Mistress would have had to escape _that_, a practical impossibility.

Unless Gallifrey had fallen out of the pocket universe. It was possible, but that meant it could end up anywhere out there. Any galaxy, any solar system, or none at all. It could have hurtled into a sun, or a black hole, or popped into the middle of an asteroid belt and been pummeled into oblivion.

It couldn't have been destroyed, The Mistress escaped. He took another swill of the coffee and slammed his cup down in frustration. He was going in circles. For someone who was trying not to think, he was failing at it miserably.

"Well now, since when does Mr. John Smith drink his coffee black?" said a familiar female voice behind him. He would recognize it any where.

He slowly turned around in his chair, and saw just who he was expecting, and a wide smile spread to his face.

She was a middle aged women with sholder length, brown hair that had only just begun to go grey on the edges. Her heart shaped face was some what marred by lines of age, though she had aged well from they young girl he had traveled with so many years ago. Her eyes still held that pure, soulful look to them, a kindness that most people seemed to lose some where along the way. She wore a very subtle outfit; a brown patterned sweater and blue jeans. It didn't matter what she looked like or what she wore, she was his oldest and most trusted friend in all of time and space.

"Sarah Jane", and for the first time in months, The Doctor beamed.


	2. Chapter 2: Catching Up

_(Author's Note: This chapter has a lot of information in it from past episodes, mainly Day of the Doctor, but also Time of the Doctor, and Death in Heaven. In the Doctor catching up with Sarah Jane, it will catch up the reader if they have not seen those episodes yet. I'm also proposing a bit of theory in regards to return of Gallifrey in what the Doctor thinks about it. It came out of a debate about whether or not the Docter destroyed Gallifrey and then saved it, or if he saved it both times. It doesn't effect cannon in any way. I just feel it suits this Doctor to consider it as the most self reflective Doctor. Anyway, I digress. Enjoy guys and gals)_

The Doctor was happily bewildered into silence. Sarah Jane Smith stood in front of him, in the flesh. Immediately he felt as though he was shot backwards to his fourth self, that adventurer with the ridiculous scarf and the robot dog. Back to when they were both younger, a time that felt like eons ago.

"Please! Sit!" he shouted, pulling out a chair for her.

She smiled sweetly, almost as though her memories of _him_ were flooding back to her. The Doctor couldn't see how they wouldn't. He considered Sarah Jane his best friend. She had met him when he was only on his third regeneration, when he was an older, white haird man with an impeccable sense of style. That was when they began their travels, all through the remainder of that life and much of the one after. After he had begrudgingly left her behind that one sunny day in London so long ago, and their paths had crisscrossed like roads on a map ever after. She met the two previous versions of himself that came before the first she met, and most of the ones that followed. The amount of danger they had faced throughout the years was immense, and she would always hold a very special place to him none of his other companions could ever fill. He cared for each of them greatly as well, all in there own special way, but the woman now seated in front of him perhaps the best assistant he had ever had.

"Can I buy you a coffee?" he asked. She shook her head.

"No thats quite alright, I'm fine. I'm sorry to ambush you like this, but I saw you in the window and had to come in and say hello! Especially after that awkward meeting last year," she said.

She was referring to when he had met her in a cooking ware store not long ago. He had brushed past her and just let her know who he was, before making a quick escape. He now wished he had stayed.

"My God, when you said 'eye tumors' I thought it may be you, because only you would concoct something like that. Then you gave that same alias 'Jon Smith," she shook her head with a smirk, "I only wish you had stayed a bit longer..." she trailed, looking a bit sad.

"I didn't want to put you in danger," he answered. She had lived through enough at this point. There was no reason she should risk getting killed now.

"Pfft" she snorted, "trust me, with all the things that have gone on here on this planet for the last ten or fifteen years, I'm not worried about whatever danger is following you around."

"You never have been," he grinned wryly. She had always been brave to a fault, "So, what do you think? Like the new face?"

"I do!" she exclaimed, "Its very... stately. Sort of reminds me of your third variant. I liked him too. Your new accent is wonderful by the way! How long have you been Scottish?"

"Its new to this one," he replied, "I like it, I feel like I can really complain now without people thinking I'm whining." She laughed, flashing that same grin she always used to.

"I suppose thats true. If I may though... how did it happen?" she asked, becoming suddenly serious. He sighed, shaking his head.

"You're never going to believe me."

"Try me."

"Remember that silly young man who wore the stupid bow ties?" he asked her, rolling his eyes at his old selfs fashion sense. He had no clue what he was thinking. A delusion that bow ties were cool. Terrible idea.

"Of course. He was adorable," she answered.

"That was the one before this one. I spent nine hundred years on a planet called Trenzalor and I... died of old age," he shrugged, a bit embarrassed.

"Thats... not such a bad way to go. You've gone worse ways." she said frankly "What have you been up to? Who are you travelling with?"

He hesitated. It was a hard truth to speak. He was alone, plain and simple.

"Well... I'm not with anyone. My most recent assistant Clara left. I think the job... was too much for her at the end, and I can't blame her." Sarah only smiled reassuringly.

"Its not for everyone, what you do. Some people aren't built for it," The Doctor shook his head.

"She was built for the job with the me she started out with, not the one I changed into. I... don't know if it was the things we faced or if I just pushed her too hard. I had to let her go. I could see what it was doing to her. "

Guilt and self anger settled in his chest. He remembered their goodbye, when he told her he found Gallifrey. That lie was the only way she would leave with surety, if she thought he was going to stop traveling and settle back on his home planet. He didn't want her to go, but he didn't want her to stay and become some heresy of herself. So he did the wrong thing... for the right reasons. Sarah Jane nodded, frowning.

"So then... what are you doing out there, by yourself?" he could see the pity in her eyes. He hated pity. It was degrading.

Now was the part where he had to decide whether or not to tell her about Gallifrey. He hadn't told anyone yet. Except for Clara of course, because she was present for the monolithic event. Conflict swirled inside him, but it setteled quickly. Even if the knowledge put her in danger, he didn't want to lie to his oldest friend. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't care, but this was Sarah Jane. If there was one being in all of space and time who would understand everything that was happening to him, it was her.

"The Time Lords are back. Gallifrey is back. Its out there somewhere. I just have the impossible task of finding it."

She looked shocked by him just dropping that on her, but she managed to regain her composure fairly quickly. Then she smiled.

"Thats... fantastic! When we met a few years ago, you said you were the last Time Lord. What happened?"

That was the question he had been running from for more then a few of his lives, the one he didn't want to answer, not even to himself. It was his greatest sin, turned around into his greatest triumph. The only way he could consider it the latter is if he found his home, and knew for sure it was there. He didn't want to lie to Sarah. Not about this. She knew there was a Time War, it was time for him to tell her how it ended.

"During The Last Great Time War, in the final battle, the Dalek fleet assaulted Gallifrey in full, in an attempt to destroy the Time Lords once and for all. It was working too, they were winning. If the Daleks won the Time War, they would certainly annihilate all of creation until there was literally nothing left. Not even themselves. The Time Lords were not going to allow that to happen. They were convening to decide whether or not to use their considerable power to wipe the universe clean. They were going to literally erase everything and everyone, from every moment in time. Basically press the reset button so to avoid the Dalek victory. It sounded impossible at the time, but with almost every Time Lord left in existence willing to lend his mental powers to the job, they could do it. I know it doesn't sound like a group of people in the same room thinking hard could do anything but give someone a headache, but you have to remember this would be billions of the most ancient and powerful beings in the entire universe melding their minds together with the singular purpose of erasing everything."

Sarah fell back in her chair, covering her mouth with her hand in utter horror. She knew enough about the Time Lords to understand what they were capable of. The Doctor took a deep breath.

"There was a weapon created long ago by the Time Lords, called The Moment, or in layman's terms The Galaxy Eater. I think you can figure out why they called it that, your not like most of the pudding brains around here. It was an Omega class weapon, making it a cardinal sin to use it, under any circumstance. It didn't destroy things, it erased them. Whatever it was used on was gone and could never be recovered. It was like it never existed at all, and can never exist again. In the face of the universe being destroyed either way, I stole it, and..." this was the hard part for him to say. He shut his eyes.

"I used it on Gallifrey. The planet was destroyed, and the entire Dalek fleet with it. I committed double genocide against both sides... my own people and our enemiesenemies. It was Time Locked, disabling any attempt at time travel to go back and change it. No one could go back to it, not even myself."

He was quiet for a a few minutes. Sarah just stared back at him, her eyes wide and mouth open.

"Oh... my God," she muttered, "you... had to kill them all anyway... whether you wanted to or not... like you tried to avoid all that time ago."

She was talking about when the two of them had traveled together, when he had the chance to wipe out the Daleks and didn't take it, not wanting to commit genocide, even against them. Despite how sick inside it made him, he wish he had. He could have avoided more unnecessary bloodshed than there would have been on his hands. The Daleks had survived The Moment anyway, so really, it was all for nothing.

"I'm... so sorry," tears began to form in her eyes. Half of him expected her to hate him for what he had done. Half of him wanted her to. He knew Sarah Jane better than that. Or... he should have. All she did was feel for him.

"Then, just before I spent all that time on Trenzalor, somehow I was able to go back, along with another of my former selves and meet that version who fought The War. I don't know how, because it wasn't supposed to happen, not with a Time Lock. Together, with two of my selves, I managed to save Gallifrey by moving it. We found a way to use our Tardis' to move Gallifrey, literally phase it out of our universe and into another in a reality bending event once thought impossible. The Daleks killed each other in the crossfire, because they had surrounded the planet and when Gallifrey disappeared, they couldnt stop their weapons fast enough, halting them from taking the universe over. We dropped it, frozen, in a pocket universe... somewhere. Now... I've been trying to find it."

"So... you destroyed it, then saved it?" she asked him, obviously confused. He understood why, even he didn't understand it completely himself. It shouldn't have even been able to happen. It flew in the face of every law of time travel.

"Basically, yes. I don't know if I ever destroyed it in the first place, or if I had saved it the first time and the paradox of meeting my future self forced me to forget," he shook his head. It wouldn't be the first time he met his future self and ended up forgetting it. Paradoxes were weird that way. The not knowing though, was the part that haunted him the most.

Did he save it all along but just... forgot? Or did he first destroy it and then save it after? He very much wanted to believe, had to believe, that he had spared Gallifrey all along. However, he couldn't say for sure he didn't murder every last one of his own people and then changed it later. The silly raggedy man with the bow tie never thought of that, he was just happy to have his home back. The perks of regeneration; it gave one a whole new outlook, even if he didn't want it.

"Its out there, somewhere, if it hasn't some how been torn apart while waiting for me to show up," he rubbed his forehead, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Most of his cards were on the table, but he felt far from relieved. He didn't need to tell her about the return of his arch nemesis, The Master. Or, as _she_ was now called, The Mistress. That took some getting used to. He had never been female before, not until the last time they met. She had attempted to take over the Earth, and eventually the galaxy, by converting the Earth's dead into Cybermen, a race of hive-minded cyborgs. He had stopped her, but not before she told him the supposed location of his lost home. She lied of course, but it meant that at least, Gallifrey was, or still is, out there. She couldn't have showed up if it wasn't, because she was trapped there when he moved it.

He was getting a headache. Why humans seemed to feel less stressed after talking about their problems was beyond him.

"Enough about me!" The Doctor abruptly said, "What about you? What have you been up to since we last met?"

"Nothing as exciting as that, thats for sure," Sarah Jane shrugged, "actually... things have been pretty... normal. My son, Luke, is enrolled in Oxford University, top of his class. He's duel majoring in journalism and physics." The smile on her face spoke of her pride.

"Like mother, like son," The Doctor mused. Despite that she started as a mere investigative reporter, by the time she was finished traveling with him, she had a working knowledge of physics, both modern and future understandings.

"He has K9 by the way. He loved that dog so much I just couldn't make him part with it." The Doctor smiled again. K9 was a futuristic robot dog he had let Sarah Jane keep from their travels together, as a companion. Part of him missed that dog... most of him remembered how annoyingly right it was all the time about everything. He was still happy it was being taken care of.

"My daughter, Sky has been accepted to the most prestigious girls school in all of England. She spends most of her time there, except when she comes home for the holidays. My two friends, Rani and Clyde are consulting for UNIT and are... helping them save hundreds of lives. I'm so proud of all of them," through the smile, he could see the that hint of sadness in her eyes. He had seen it often, whenever he looked in the mirror. It was the ever lurking pain of loneliness.

"Its just me and Mr. Smith" she shrugged.

"You've remarried? Congratulations!" The Doctor shouted, jumping up out of his seat, drawing looks from the baristas at the counter, "I must meet him, take me to him!" He wanted to see if he was worth Sarah Jane.

She covered her eyes with her hand, her face turning red, and a chuckle escaping her.

"No. No, I meant the super computer in the attic. Remember?"

"Oh..." he replied, feeling foolish. He had forgotten about that. That was the computer's code name. Come to think of it, he wasn't exactly sure how she came to possess such a device. He should probably ask her about that some time...

He awkwardly adjusted his coat and sat back down, his outburst contained.

"I must confess, he's not always the best company," she shrugged.

They were both silent for a few moments. What was he to say to a friend he hadn't seen in far too long? There was so much, in what felt like not nearly enough time.

"This is nice," Sarah Jane started, "it's always nice to see you,"

"And you as well," he replied. He looked at her, but something distracted him. The T.V behind her head was running the daily head lines, and something on the ticker caught his eye.

"What? What is it?" Sarah asked once she noticed him staring intently over her sholder. He simply pointed one long finger at the screen, straining to it.

"Hey! You! Turn that up!" he shouted at the barista at the counter. Looking a tad insulted, he did as he was told. The male news caster's calm voice filled the café.

"...is in mourning today after the death of Environmental Researcher George Paxton. Regarded as one of the chief minds of this century, his breakthroughs in reversing the effects of global warming were regarded as some of the most important discoveries of our our time. Close friends say Dr. Paxton had become a bit of a shut in in recent months, and had reportedly been working on some sort experimental device of unknown usefulness. Police are baffeled as to Paxton's cause of death, as it appears he froze to death in his home last night. They are urging anyone with any knowledge of the strange circumstances of his death, anyone who may have wished to harm Mr. Paxton or any other information in regards to this case to come forward and aid the investigation. In other news, a herd of wild donkys..."

The Doctor looked at Sarah Jane, then back at the television, which was now showing a different story. How curious this was.

"What.. was the temperature last night?" The Doctor asked.

"Around fifty five degrees," she answered, also looking baffeled. That was no temperature to freeze to death in, especially not inside. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something but stopped.

The Doctor tried to put this out of his head. He was, after all, supposed to be here relaxing. This was his time off. Time to decompress. Not go chasing after a man, frozen to death, inside, in relative temperature, in fall.

That shouldn't happen. How does that happen? Especially on Earth, in this year? People just don't turn to popsicles over night. Not normal people, with normal happenings. That sounded like...

"Murder," Sarah Jane murmered, as though she read his thoughts, "something murdered him,"

"My thoughts exactly," The Doctor confirmed, "not that the incompetent police will figure it out. They seem to need bloody footsteps leading up to the person who committed the crime's house. He rolled his eyes.

"Then, maybe, someone should give them some help," she replied slyly.

"Maybe someone should. Perhaps two people?" he winked at her. He was enjoying seeing her again, he didn't really want her to go so soon.

"Perhaps," her grin widened. He had her, and he knew it, "who would be smart enough to do that?"

"I don't know, I think Jon and Sarah Jane Smith, may be up to the task." he said coyly. She nodded brusquely.

"One last hurrah?"

"Absolutely," he said. The Doctor pounded back the rest of his coffee, and stood up. He took his money out of his pocket, and left the entire stack on the table. It had to be enough for the coffee, and he didn't cair if they kept the change. Sarah Jane stood too, an exuberant smile on her face. They quickly left the coffee shop, ready and excited to discover what happened to the iced over George Paxton.


	3. Chapter 3: Mysterious Findings

It did not take The Doctor and Sarah Jane long to find George Paxton's apartment. Once they got in Sarah Jane's car, a blue Volkswagen Bug, all The Doctor had to do was use his sonic screwdriver to change the frequency on the radio so that it would pick up police scanners. There was a lot of chatter about the mysterious circumstances of the man's death. Evidently it was the talk to the town. He wasn't surprised. It wasn't every day that someone randomly froze to death. Especially not a world renowned scientist.

Paxton's home was in an apartment building on the corner of a quiet-seeming street. The neighborhood was crammed with police cars and the building's parking lot was a mass of uninformed officers and yellow crime scene tape. The policemen were only letting through people who could prove they lived in the building or other investigators. Sarah Jane parked the car a bit down the street, so she and The Doctor could watch for a little while.

The cops were obviously handling this seriously. Just with the amount of visibly armed officers outside, he counted twelve just in the parking lot, they weren't taking any chances. These didn't even include the pair of guards standing on either side of front door, holding assault rifles. They had a large van parked near by, with the trunk open. He could see a two computers inside, as well as a scanner, a microscope, and a attaché case full of hazmat suits. It was a heavy duty crime scene investigation van. At least they were treating this _as a crime._ That was more than he had expected. Most of the time, if someone died under seemingly unnatural circumstances, they ruled it "_accidential_" and called it a day.

"Are you ready?" he asked Sarah Jane. She nodded, and the pair exited the car. As they walked up to the apartment, he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. That wallet contained one of the most important items for his infiltration of nearly any where: psychic paper.

It was a handy invention that looked like a blank piece of white paper, but it was far more. To any on looker The Doctor showed it to, it would appear to be whatever document he wanted them to perceive it as, whether that was a badge, a pass, a security card or any other thing he may need to get into some place. It was a difficult ruse for most people to see through. It either took someone with an extremely high IQ quotient, someone trained to see through it, or someone with a startlingly little amount of imagination. In most cases, it worked like a charm. He doubted this time would be any.

As the pair approached the building they were met by a decidedly round looking cop. Before he reached them, The Doctor leaned his head toward Sarah Jane.

"MI6," he muttered. She nodded.

"Sir, Madam, I'm going to have to ask you to leave, this is a crime scene," he shouted. The Doctor scowled, and held up his wallet, letting it open to reveal the psychic paper.

"Special Agent John Smith, MI6," he stated authoritatively. He made a motion looking as though he put his wallet into his back pocket, but instead he subtly handed it into his partner's hand behind his back. She in turn held it up, a wide smile on her face. Excellent, she was being good cop. He preferred bad cop.

"Special Investigator Sarah Jane Smith, MI6,"

"No relation," The Doctor added.

"MI6? Why in the blazes would MI6 be here?" he spat. The Doctor rolled his eyes. Police officers never liked it when other groups horned in on their parade, even if they couldn't figure out where their hand was right in front of their face. Stupid sense of pride he figured.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that sir. This is a matter of Royal Security, the security of our nation, our colonies, and of the Parliamentary Association for the Safety, Security, and Sanity of our great lady, The Queen" he made a salute, "God Save the Queen,"

He doubted any of that was right, but he had to admit the gape-mouthed, stupid look on the officers face was priceless. He likely should have stopped after _Royal Security_. He may have just talked himself into a hole.

" Mr. Paxton was involved in a top secret project that, should it fall into the wrong hands, could be disastrous for our nation and our allys," Sarah bluffed. The probability of her being right was high however, otherwise Paxton, a high level scientist, wouldn't be dead.

The cop in front of them gave them a side long glare.

"You two look pretty old to be be MI6," he argued.

"You look pretty unathletic to be a police man, so I guess we're even," The Doctor shot back. The man looked down at his potbelly and set his jaw.

"I think I should call this in," he replied. The Doctor scowled, his thick eyebrows looking like they could rip open a tin can.

"Alright, fine, you do that," he said venomously, "Call your supervisor, and tell them you denied two MI6 agents access to a crime scene because you're mush brained oaf, so you can get fired and be replaced by someone who's actually useful!"

The policeman visibly recoiled, stepping backwards.

"Alright! Alright! No need to shout, go right ahead in. Second floor, fourth apartment," he said, stepping aside. Apparently the threat of losing his job was enough for him to neglect his duty. The Doctor and Sarah ducked under the neon tape, and made their way to the front door.

"Let 'em through, they're MI6!" the officer shouted. The pair of guards parted, they they walked in.

They followed the trail of officers to Paxton's apartment. As they walked in they were met by a man in a black trenchcoat. He had slick backed blond hair, and dark green eyes. His big nose was straight like a bird's beak, and he had a tiny dimple in his clean shaven chin.

"Detective Tom McGrewin," he introduced in a cockney accent, his hands on his hips. He scanned the newcomers with his beady eyes, with his lips curved into the slightest of sneers, like he smelled something bad.

"Special Agent John Smith, this is my partner, Sarah Jane Smith, no relation," The Doctor said, absentmindedly walking right past him. He wasn't concerned with the incompetent investigators. His firce eyes were already scanning the disaster of a room.

"We weren't notified MI6 was getting involved. A little heads up would have been nice," he heard the detective say.

"We were diverted last moment. This crime has risen to the top of MI6's shortlist," she bluffed. The Doctor was only half paying attention.

His keen eyes picked up on everything in this room. The junk was first and foremost. Useless, almost every peice of it. Wires, pipes, broken electronics; it was like a junkyard threw up on the counter. Blue prints and books were littered in other places, worn and taped togther from years, maybe even decades of abuse. Some sort of contraption sat on the table, looking peiced together out of bits and bobs.

Obsessive was what this room said about its owner. Everything in this room was a mess except that one place; whatever that thing on the table was supposed to be. It was the only thing that mattered to him; cleanliness didn't, other people didn't, romance definitely didn't. He doubted a woman had ever stepped foot in here besides Sarah Jane right now. He looked down. Based on the dust coating the floor, and the veritable trenches in it from where Paxton walked, it appeared that he only moved from the counters, to the dining table, to the coffee table, to the chalk board covered in sophisticated mathematics, and back. There were other sets of shoe prints as well, likely the careless policemen, but one conspicuous set alarmed him. Boot prints leading from the door to the table, and back out. They looked like they could be size seventeens.

His eyes fell on Paxton's body. He had to give the man one thing, he was a dead ringer for Winston Churchill. The Doctor would know, he'd met the man multiple times. His skin was an unnatural blue pigment, and his hair was full of frost. Even though it had been warm for hours, he was still frozen. In fact, there wasn't even a puddle where he had melted at all. His face was still rapt in the horror of his impending death.

He could hear Sarah Jane still arguing with the detective over their arrival here.

"Agent Smith!" The Doctor shouted, getting her attention, "could you go investigate that... thing on the table. Try and figure out what he was making?"

"Of course, Doctor," she replied, brushing past McGrewin.

"Oh, an agent and a Doctor. Lovely," McGrewin said sarcastically, "Doctor of what exactly."

"Fermentation sciences," he replied, kneeling down at George Paxton's body. He put his pointer finger and thumb to the mans wrist, and squeezed.

"He's dead, there's no pulse," McGrewin snorted.

"I'm not looking for a pulse," he growled back. This man was getting on his nerves with his constant mouth diarrhea.

He squished his wrist a bit. The skin had a little give to it. It wasn't rock hard like he was expecting it to be. It was more like a half thawed turkey; icy and gritty but not really solid. That... was curious.

He moved up his arm and squeezed hishis shoulder. That was a little harder. He had it figured out now. He pushed his pointer finger in the center of his chest.

The skin was like concrete. That was the point of impact, of whatever he was hit with, because it was flash frozen. There was no frostbite across the rest of his body, so it killed him quickly, but it was not instantaneous.

"I don't know why the MI6 is bothering with this. It was obviously an accident from whatever garbage he was building over there," McGrewin said flippantly. That was it. The Doctor was done; his low amount of patients had run out.

"Shut up!" he shouted, his brogue making him more intimidating then he already was, "Just stop talking! I don't want to hear your insipid theories, I don't want to hear your idiotic questions, I don't even want to hear you breathe! You know what? Stop thinking! Someone as stupid as you are, thinking in the same room is distracting on so many levels I can't even begin to describe it, because I know your little mashed potato brain is over there trying to formulate small sentences about as intelligent as a child trying to jam a square peg in a round hole! Just stand there! Don't talk, don't move, don't think! Don't! Do! Anything!"

McGrewin just stood there, mouth agape, stunned into silence.

"So much better," The Doctor muttered. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his coat pocket, and pointed it at Paxton.

"What is that?" McGrewin abruptly asked, causing The Doctor to grit his teeth together.

"What did I _just _say to you!" he yelled, shaking his head. He saw Sarah Jane shoot him an unappreciative glare.

"Its a... high density camera," he lied, "every one will have them in a few years,"

He wiggled about the settings and scanned Paxton's corpse. The tool warbled and he looked at the readings.

Negative two hundred and thirty eight degrees. His brows furrowed, and his mind sped. That wasn't normal, and didn't quite make sense. He was obviously killed with some kind of cryogenic weapon, The Doctor could tell that just from the fact there was a point of impact and no frostbite. This wasn't on par with any cryo weapon he had seen however. For one thing, Humans didn't have those kinds of weapons yet. Some aliens did however, but even those didn't freeze to that high a temperature. Most weapons like that froze to temperatures of around negative four hundred and fifty. It also wasn't uniform. It seemed to... fan out from one point rather than freeze everything solid immediately, which was what most weapons like that were supposed to do. It was almost like it was... defective.

"Doctor, come over hear and look at this, please," Sarah Jane piped up, dragging him from his thoughts.

He stood from Paxton's body, and walked across the room. Sarah was holding one of the many scattered blueprints. His eyes began to scan it while she talked.

"This is what he was building, but there is something missing from the bottem," she explained, pointing to a small circular object on the blueprint that was conspicuously gone from the actual creation. He recognized the schematics right away.

"Cold fire generator," he muttered, "they don't have those yet, not here on Earth..." He looked at the odd mechanism on the table. Built out of pipes and junk, including a few fire extinguishers and heat pump, it suddenly dawned on The Doctor what Paxton was making.

"It's a crudely made cryo-gun" he whispered darkly. Sarah Jane furrowed her brows.

"Really? There's no way this would have worked, is there? It doesn't look like it could do anything but fall apart," she asked sceptically. He shook his head.

"Of course not, there's nothing to redirect the excess energy from the coldfire generator. When he test fired it, it would have blown up the whole building," he said derisively.

Cold fire technology was used to power whole ships, not to power weapons. It took any sort of liquid or gas that normally needed the combustion process to fuel a ship and simultaneously super heated and super cooled it while shooting it into the hyperdrive so that a ship could move and sustain itself while keeping inward temperatures of well below zero. This all happened in that small, metal, baseball sized tank present on the blueprints, where it washed fuel in and out continuously at mind bending speeds. Just one could 'cold fire' enough fuel for a space ship to fly indefinitely. If used in a weapon, the energy out put was too great. It would overheat. All it did was make something into a large bomb. Apparently Paxton wasn't as good a scientist as people thought, since he was basically about to blow himself up. Unless that was his intention.

Humans didn't really have space travel yet, they were just barely sticking their toes into the endless pool above. Even if they did, cold fire technology was not something they could use because the main side effect was severe temperature drop. This was alien technology.

That begged the question; how did Paxton get it? It wasn't like cold fire generators just fell out of the sky or grew on trees. In fact, so few races across the universe even had that at this point that it made it difficult to decide who was even using it.

"He shouldn't even have that. No wonder he's dead," The Doctor mused darkly.

"Is it something someone would be willing to kill for?" his partner asked back.

"Absolutely. People will kill over very little. A peice of metal that can make a whole ship fly with very little effort? I'd say so," The Doctor shrugged. Who ever, or whatever, they were dealing with, was from someplace very cold, not that it really narrowed it down.

The Doctor turned around, put his hands behind his back and shut his eyes. He was missing something, something staring him right in the face that he couldn't see. A cold fire generator in the hands of a scientist, who was in turn killed with a possibly detective cryo weapon, by something big... too big to be human. Those shoe prints proved that. For once he felt like he knew a bit too much, as thought after thought ran through his head. Sometimes over two thousand years of knowledge had a way of clogging up the brain rather then being helpful. He knew once he figured out what was going on he was going to feel stupid. All the pieces were there, but he couldn't put the puzzle together.

"Alright... fine. If he was killed over that... thing, who killed him?" McGrewin abruptly asked, "and how? Its not like I can just walk up and freeze a man to death." The Doctor had forgotten he was there. It had been so nice.

"That's not the question you should ask," he answered, opening his eyes, "not who, or how, or when, or where, or even why. It isn't a wonder you police can't figure out anything but the obvious, you never ask the right questions to catch the killer," he scolded. McGrewin sighed in frustration and stomped out. Thank God.

"I know exactly what you mean," Sarah Jane stated, putting down the blueprints, "there's really only one important question in a mystery like this. Were there any other similar murders?"

As she finished, a smile spread across The Doctor's face.

"My thoughts exactly, Ms. Smith,"


	4. Chapter 4: Fascinating Discoveries

_(Author's Note: First off, Happy New Year Guys and Gals! Secondly, I'm going to do some subtle alluding in this chapter to the culprit of the crimes in this fic. I'm hoping perhaps some of you major Whovians will catch on. Or maybe the mystery will only thicken. We'll see!)_

"You should have told us right away, when we got here," The Doctor scolded.

"You've got to be kidding me!" McGrewin shouted, "You're MI6! Shouldn't you be on top of this crap?"

"Its alright, just give us the address, and we'll go and investigate it ourselves," Sarah Jane said, quieting the situation temporarily. McGrewin scribbled down something on his pad and ripped offa piece of paperpaper, slapping it into Sarah Jane's hand.

The Doctor was livid. When they had left the apartment, The Doctor had asked the head detective if there had been any other chilling deaths in the recent month. That answer had not been what he was looking for.

Not only had there been another mysterious deep freeze a week and a half ago, but it was another scientist in the same field of environmental science. He had been found semi-frozen in his lab.

"And let me guess, you people considered that an accident too!" The Doctor said sarcastically. What was wrong with these people? Stupid, that was what was wrong with them.

"Look, he was developing some kind of weather control device, and honestly it looked like something just went haywire in there and he got killed," McGrewin defended.

"And you didn't think to put two and two together when somebody else ended up a popsicle?" The Doctor asked, his angry gaze throwing daggers at the man. There was a plot afoot, he could taste it, and this man's inability to read between the lines was hampering his uncovering of said plot.

Had he said this right from the beginning, something like, "Oh by the way, this is the second popsicle man we've had in a few weeks," or "this sure is strange how many people are freezing to death these days," it may have helped his thought process right from the beginning. More then one death coupled with the missing coldfire generator meant this killer wasn't driven by some serial instinct to murder, nor some form of insanity. They wanted something, something they probably couldn't find. Assuming the cold fire generator wasn't it, or it wasn't the only thing they were trying to get their hands on, there would be another death, and it would happen soon.

"I'm getting right tired of you shouting at me!" McGrewin growled.

"Stop making a horse's arse out of yourself and I'll stop!" The Doctor replied snippily. McGrewin stepped forward visibly, and the Time Lord matched it, the two men standing nose to nose. He had faced down horrors far greater then a snide, shabby detective.

"Thats enough! Both of you!" Sarah Jane shouted, squeezing between the two men and pushing them apart. She grabbed The Doctors wrist and pulled him aside, to the edge of the parking lot. He gave one more glance at McGrewin who, adjusted his coat in aggressively and crossed his arms.

"What do you think you're doing?" Sarah Jane chided.

"What? He started it!" The Doctor almost whined.

"No he didn't! You'reYou're the one shouting," she replied, "he's just doing his job." The Doctor snorted.

"No he's not, he's the most shallow example of a leading detective I've ever seen. And..."

"It doesn't matter!" she said, cutting him off, "If he figures out we're not MI6, we're messed over. And you have to remember, not everyone puts things together as quickly as you do,"

"So I have noticed," he muttered, "maybe he should seek out a different career then," She just gave him a look and shook her head, then broke into a slight smile.

"Still impossible," she whispered.

"No matter how many times I regenerate, some things never change," mused The Doctor.

They soon took their leave, avoiding McGrewin at all costs. That was fine by the frequent-time traveller, he was quite tired of the man anyway. As far as he could guess, the feeling was mutual.

They reached Sarah Jane's car and The Doctor ducked in the passengers seat. Sarah started it up, and handed the paper over.

"Where are we going?" she asked. The Doctor glanced down at the address. He wasn't pleased with_ that_ either. It was typical of McGrewin's sub par work.

"Apparently, the apartment of Dr. Hugo Masters, in Islington," he replied, "you would think he would have given us the lab address, not his apartment."

"I'm not shocked, he didn't seem too happy we were meddling in his investigation," she shrugged, "besides, that isn't far from here, it shouldn't take long." She reved the engine of the VW Bug, and they sped away.

* * *

It wasn't very long into the trip to Islington that Sarah again started talking. He knew she would, he could tell she had something on her mind, and he wasn't always the best at reading people's emotions.

"What do you think we're dealing with here?" she asked, glancing over to the Time Lord. The Doctor ran his hand through his spiny grey hair. That really was the question, wasn't it? He didn't quite know, not yet, but he could rule some things out.

"Not Daleks or Cybermen," he replied. "They would be trying to take over London already, and in the case of the Cybermen, Paxton would have been assimilated, not killed." That was likely anyway. Maybe they were mixing things up a bit this time. He still doubted it. He could practically smell the Daleks at this point, and it would take the Cybermen some time to recover from their last defeat.

"Could it be Zygons? They hate fire, so maybe they're looking for a preeminent solution to combat it," she reasoned.

"I doubt it. They usually tend not to worry about it until it is right in front of them. Plus, its not a cunning strategy for them. They would have kept Paxton alive so they could mimic him," he said, shooting her idea down. Zygons could shape shift into almost any living creature so long as they had the person they were masquerading as alive. They did this with important people so they could slowly infiltrate governments or groups and take them over from the inside. This wasn't the work of Zygons. He could guarantee that.

"Wouldn't be Sontarans either, they're more focused on conquest than individual murders," she stated.

"No they prefer to kill thousands, and then get into the bloodiest possible battle," he nodded. They were a clone race of warriors who loved nothing more than combat. They lived for it. One scientist wasn't on the agenda. If they were going to attack it would lean more toward mass destruction.

"If its the Slitheens again, after this is through, you're taking me to Raxacoricofallapatorius, because I'm tired of dealing with them, and we're doing something about this" she grumbled. He had heard she had a few run ins with those green monstrosities after he last saw her. He couldn't say he blamed her for feeling that way.

"Honestly Sarah, I don't know what this is. I can tell you this though, I will find out," he replied. He still had his sneaking suspicions, but his mind was open to any possibilities, even the unlikely ones. The universe had a way of making the unlikely very likely indeed.

Slowly something dawned on him. This was the first time she had mentioned going anywhere with him in the Tardis when it wasn't an emergency. Sure, she had climbed in once or twice since they parted ways so long ago, but it had only been in dire times of need, such as the reemergence of Davros or when he had faked his own death to draw out his enemies. When he had asked her to come with him again during an adventure with his tenth self, it had been met with anger and sadness over him leaving her behind when he returned to Gallifrey. Anger and sadness he did not know she held onto. So for her to make a comment about going into the Tardis again...

He had a feeling, just for a second, as though he was his old self, that floppy vagabond with the hat and the scarf. He rarely felt like his former selves once he regenerated. He could remember how he felt, what he thought and what went on in his head, but once he changed, it always seemed alien to him. It was like the memories of another man in his head, but the same man in the same. It was rare when he felt the ghost of a former self creeping in. He wasn't sure if it was a good feeling or not.

* * *

The drive over to Islington was rather calming, as calming as a bumpy car ride could be. Why he used to enjoy those so much was beyond him. On the upside, it was nice to spend time with someone who wasn't trying to kill him. He felt like that was becoming more and more rare these days.

Masters' apartment was on a busy street near a shopping plaza. The sidewalks were cramped with pedestrians whoes hands were full of shopping bags, and finding a place to park here took ten straight minutes of driving. Once they did however, it was a short walk to the first floor walk up.

His wooden front door was a mess of crime scene tape, and was bashed in brutally. The Doctor tore the tape away and slipped inside, followed quickly by Sarah Jane. He pulled out his screwdriver, unsure of what he would find within.

This apartment was a studio like the last one they had visited that day, but the similarities ended there. This one was neat and tidy, a relievingrelieving sight from the rat's nest of earlier. Everything seemed to have its place; appliances on the kitchen counters spaced evenly for easy use, the table neatly arranged with chairs and a bouquet of, now dead, pink roses, and a small bookshelf against one wall with books rigidly vertical and arranged alphabetically. Even the pillows on the love seat were neatly fluffed, and the floors were so clean one could eat off them. The Doctor spied a bed behind a Japanese style screen, set up for privacy, like he was creating another room where there was not one before. Other then a few loose leaf notebooks on a coffee table by the love seat, this room was perfect and pristine, almost like no one lived here.

"Let's see if we can figure out why someone wanted him dead, shall we?" The Doctor thought out loud, stepping in. His mind was already at work as he walked across the main room, ducking his head behind the screen to look into the make shift bedroom.

He found what he was looking for; an alarm clock radio on the nightstand next to the bed. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at it and pressed one of the buttons. With a high pitched, warbling whine, the radio sprung to life, tuning right to the local police channel, exactly what he wanted. He had that gut feeling there was going to be another death, and it was going to be soon. He was going to make sure he heard about it this time.

"I'll look through the journals on the table, see if I can find out anything about Dr. Masters," Sarah announced. The Doctor was only sort of listening. He was more concerned with analyzing the room, particularly the bookshelf.

One could tell a great deal about someone by the things they read. For example, Paxton's books had all been about his field of study, proclaiming his career obsessed nature. The Doctor's was a mish mosh of many things, from text books of the futuristic sciences, to fiction like Harry Potter. Cosmopolitan was perhaps the word for it.

Dr. Masters' bookshelf was as equally diverse, but highly organized. The top shelf was filled with fiction, mostly by the literary elite, such as Shakespeare, Tolkien and Poe. On the second were his textbooks, most environmental science like those in Paxton's home. There were others however from the fields of Geology, Herbalism, and even Virology. Below that were historical books, about many of the human wars this planet had some how managed to survive over the years. So intent on destroying themselves... sometimes he wondered how they managed to survive for as long as they did.

"I'm not really finding anything Doctor, these are mostly filled with physics problems and geological reports from around Britain, no real research to kill over," Sarah Jane explained, leafing through a notebook. That didn't surprise him in the least. Someone this organized and obviously intelligent wouldn't just leave his work laying on the coffie table. No, someone like Masters would hide it, but not somewhere where it was inconvenient for him to get to it at a moments notice. He doubted he left everything about his occupation at work. Very few people did. Scientists like Masters, the elite, were like artists. They wanted their work near by so they could work on it whenever they had an idea, like the painter who gets up at midnight to start a masterpiece or the writer who wakes up at two in the morning just to jot down some words. His work was in this room some where, and he would wager it was on this shelf.

He examened the bookshelf closely. Near the left edge of the second shelf, was a text book simply titled 'Global Warming and Its Effects on Our World'. The relatively mundane book stood out among the rest because of its appearance. It was decidedly more worn than it's companions and had certainly seen more use and abuse. The spine was cracked and the pages were warped and just beginning to yellow where his thumbs constantly touched the paper.

He pulled that book off the shelf and flipped it over in his hands so the pages faced the ceiling, and dropped it on the floor with a loud bang. The pages naturally flipped open to the most used viewed section, an old trick he used often.

A small pack of papers fell out, fanning out across the floor. He bent down and picked them up. He smiled. This was what he was looking for.

The first page was a sketch of a large, clear, glass dome. It had wires and control mechanisms sticking out from both ends. Below, it had descriptions in French, and a bunch of arithmetic equalities that would look like nonsense to anyone unfamiliar with theoretical physics. He did not need to read this to know what this was, he recognized it immediately.

"I know what he was doing," The Doctor announced, "he was designing a weather globe,"

Weather globes were the first human foray into environmental control and terraforming technology. Within one, a scientist could create nearly any condition; from searing heat to frozen blizzards. One day, the technology would be expanded apon and used to tame mother nature's wild will on a larger scale, making once inhospitable planets gloriously temperate and giving life to the most dead places of the universe.

"Really?" Sarah Jane asked, walking over to peak over his shoulder.

"Ingenious really," The Doctor complemented with a nod of his head," This man made the breakthrough, as far as terraforming is concerned, of a millennium. Probably why he's dead," he tossed the first sheet of paper aside.

The next peice was a copy of a letter detailing his thoughts on the weather device's uses and the eventual benefits of the science involved. He knew all of that so he tossed that aside as well.

"I thought weather control was years away," she pondered, resting one hand on her elbow and her other on her chin, "how did he do it?"

The next page was what intrigued The Doctor, and as he looked it over his mind started to race.

It was a grainy photo of a weather globe just like the one Masters' had been building. It couldn't be his however; first of all The Doctor didn't even know if he had managed to finish his version, but secondarily, the picture was too old. It had a date stamp next to it, 1983. The date could have been forged to protect his asset but doubted Masters would be paranoid enough for that. He doubted he was paranoid at all.

Paperclipped to the photo was a paper Entitled "Mission Debriefing". He sneered slightly as he noticed all of the writing was covered over with black bars. The entire sheet had been redacted. He noted the crest at the top. The Unified Intelligence Taskforce.

"Unit," he muttered, "and their secrets."

The Doctor and Unit had a complicated relationship. He, and Sarah Jane for that matter, had worked with them many times throughout the years. A taskforce to protect against the paranormal and extraterrestrial threats to Earth, they were a secretive organization that would use any means necessary to protect Earth. The Doctor didn't always approve of those means, and it had caused enough friction between them that he tried to avoid them at all costs. They had a way of assuming every alien was an enemy, and had the tendency to go in guns blazing to occasionally disastrous results. Granted, they weren't as aggressive as Torchwood, but they were bad enough at times.

"There is no way he built that in the eighty's," Sarah Jane piped in, "our science here wasn't that far advanced to do that, not unless he had alien help."

"There's another option," The Doctor replied. She nodded.

"The same way Paxton got the coldfire generator. They both stole it from something more advanced then us,"

"My thoughts exactly," he said, smirking. He always liked that about her, she caught on quickly. He didn't always need to explain the obvious.

"But from who? It isn't every day that you just run into an alien just... walking down the street," she asked.

"You did," he pointed out. She gave him a dry smile.

"Got me there,""You should know better than anyone it isn't as uncommon as people would think to run into an alien. Most people just aren't smart enough to realize it when it happens," he said flippantly.

"Alright, so assuming the time stamp is correct, and he stole the technology, why wait until now to reveal it? He could have done that way back then and turned the scientific world on its head," she asked. The Doctor rubbed his chin and staired at the photo.

"Perhaps he couldn't get it to work," he replied, "or he had to fix it and he couldn't."

"So he would have had to wait for technology to catch up so he could repair it," his companion concluded.

"Well, you can't exactly claim someone else's invention as your own if you can't make it work. That isn't an invention, its just a peice of junk." He had to commend the dedication Masters had to this grand deception. To hang on to something that long with the hopes of one day making it appear like it was his creation took patients he doubted most people possessed, if they were indeed right about the scientist. He would be surprised if they weren't.

"So we have one stolen coldfire generator, and a possibly stolen weather globe, with two men frozen to death. What are your thoughts, Doctor?" Sarah Jane asked.

His head raced. Among all the ideas he had, of innumerable possibilities, one stuck out above the rest. He could think of one race who had coldfire technology and weather globes, one that could find their way to Earth. In fact, that had come to Earth already. A race all about environmental control and cold technology.

He was jarred from this thoughts by a voice over the radio, an emergency call that simultaneously peaked both his and Sarah Jane's interest.

"... is requesting backup at five Prewett Street in Islington, for an assault in progress. The suspect has taken the victim hostage in the apartment, and the responding officers need any and all available units on scene immediately."

Another voice crackeled over the raido, this one was painted with a slight Scottish accent not dissimilar to The Doctor's own.

"We're close by, we can take that call," he responded calmly.

"Be advised, the suspect is considered armed and extremely dangerous. According to reports, the suspect is around seven feet tall with a muscular build, so caution is advised," the other voice replied.

"Come again? I don't think I quite caught that, dispatch," the Scotsman responded.

"Seven feet tall, armed and dangerous," the first voice reiterated. More voices started calling in to respond. Apparently this was going to be all hands on deck as far as the police were concerned.

"I think we just found our culprit," Sarah said, echoing The Doctor's thoughts. There weren't many people that were seven feet tall, not humans anyway.

"That isn't far from here," he said, hustling for the front door, "let's get going. You drive,"

"Of course I will, its my car," she replied, hurrying up behind him.

"I doubt we can, but let's try and beat the police there. Before they make it any worse." If this was what he thought this was, they absolutely would make this worse. Much worse.


	5. Chapter 5: Cold Blooded

_(Okay so, long Author's note here. First off, would like to say sorry for such a long delay. There have been a lot of health problems with a loved one and it prevented me from writing. Hopefully things are rounding the corner. Second, I want to make a note bout typos. In the original post of the previous chapters there were many typos and mistakes. I must confess I am deslexic and I miss things. However a friend of mine helped me clean them up, so that its less messy. She will be doing that AFTER I post each chapter so I can re-edit it. It won't take as long as the first 4 so they won't be messy for long, however if you get here super early, bare with me. Lol _

_Ok so announcement time! I have two exciting things to announce. Due to the popularity of this story and all the great feedback I have received, I am extending The Doctor's and Sarah's adventures into a full, 12 story season! My second announcement is I have posted a poll on my profile of what you want to see in the next story following A Cold Reunion. I have ideas for the next possible storys already outlined so I will be ready to write as soon as this fic is done. Thanks for all the support, it has kept me going in this difficult time, and please vote! _

_Last but not least,I want to thank GDL for all her work editing all my mistakes on chapters 1-4 and her pending help on 5. She deserves a medal for what I put that poor girl through. Without further blathering, here's chapter five, in all its glory. Enjoy, and dont hate for the end fight at the end)_

Sarah Jane's VW bug sped through the streets as she kept her eyes locked on the police car in front of them. The Doctor wasn't sure why no one was giving them a ticket actually, considering they were not only speeding but they were also weaving in and out of traffic. Perhaps it was because the cops ahead were more focused on the hostage situation down town. Even though they probably didn't need to follow this close, between the droning roar of the siren and the blue and red beams flashing all around the street he was certain they could track it without being right behind it, it was imperative they didn't lose it. This could be their only chance to meet the culprit of the recent murders. He was not about to pass that up.

He hoped that was where this car was going, straight to the criminal they were seeking. Pulling out of Masters' apartment, they had seen a police car speed by and Sarah Jane immediately started to follow. If they weren't going to the hostage situation then this car was headed someplace else... someplace not nearly as ideal.

The scanner over radio was a garbled mess of voices, all scrambled together in some cacophonous wreck of panic. That always baffled him. Why did people always seem to all talk at once when something bad happened so no one could hear each other? They should just get organized first, and all talk one at a time. Pick an order perhaps, like stupid people speak last, smart people talk first. One would think a paramilitary groupe like the police would be more organized then this.

"This is insane, Doctor," Sarah muttered as they skidded around a corner.

"When is my life not?" he replied.

"Good point," she said, slamming on the breaks, jolting them to a stop a tiny bit too close to the police car's back bumper for his liking. It was obvious right away that they had arrived.

The tiny street was clogged with police cars and barricades. Cops of all types ran back and forth, busying themselves, preparing for a possible escape. He could see riot teams with bullet proof armor and shields standing in big groups on the front lawn of the house where the assault was happening. Large SUVs blocked off the exit at one end of the street, and the constant influx of officers made the other direction impossible as well. He could deduce the street on the other side of the house was about the same, blocking off the back exit of the house.

The house in question was a two floor, brick building. Comfortable was maybe the best way to describe it, with large windows complemented by idealic shutters, a garden filled with rhododendrons and roses, and even a disgustingly perfect white picket fence that would make the Cleavers jealous. It was like whom ever lived here was living the American Dream, in the wrong country. The yard was so perfectly trimmed he could imagine it winning competitions that judged such things. The Doctor took note that the inside drapes were pulled so no one could see inside, a classic rule in the hostage taker's handbook.

The Doctor and Sarah exited her car, and he started walking forward. If he was going to pretend to be MI6, he was going to have to act like he was MI6. He just hoped Sarah Jane played along. He made sure he stood tall, without slumping his shoulders. He put a serious look on his face, and walk with an undeniable authority so he would look the part. He pulled the psychic paper out of his back pocket, getting it ready.

He glanced backwards at Sarah Jane. She too had her head held high, her nose ever so slightly in the air, giving her a pretentiousness that usually seemed to fit most special agents. That was good. A wise man once told him that if you believe your lie, so will everyone else.

As they approached the front door the first officer near by stalked toward them, holding his hand out to stop them.

"Sir, Madam, stop right there!" the burly man shouted, "this is a..."

The Doctor cut him off, jamming the psychic so close to his face he almost slapped his forehead.

"Out of the way Muscles, this is an MI6 investigation now," he shouted, drowning out whatever the man was about to say with his aggressive voice.

"MI6? What in the blazes are they doing here?" the cop said, all of his confidence seeming to drain out of him, along with most of the blood in his face for that matter. Amazing how throwing around two letters and a number seemed to intimidate practically anyone.

"That's classified," Sarah Jane answered. Both she and The Doctor walked right on by, quick to leave, lest the officer start to have his doubts.

"Hey! Thats a hostage situation in there! You can't go up there!" The man shouted behind them, "you're going to get him killed!"

"I'm MI6, I can do as I please," The Doctor replied, "and by the way, you're fired for impeding our investigation." He heard the quiet sound that was something akin to a wretch and a whine intermingled escape the poor fellow. He couldn't help but smirk, just a little. That should keep him busy.

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and turned the knob on the front door. It was unlocked and he swung it open.

He and Sarah Jane stepped through the threshold of the home, entering a tight hallway. The home was quite spacious indeed, with a fine, hardwood, stairwell directly in front of them. To the left was a door way leading to a big, comfortable kitchen. The Doctor took note of the expensive looking counter tops, made from stone mixed with crushed sea glass that caused them to sparkle in the little afternoon sunlight that peered through the closed drapes. The appliances were expensive too; the stove and microwave were top of the line, a luxury very few could afford these days.

To the right was a dining room with a large, oak table. It looked to be fine craftsmanship; the legs hand carved to look like the talons of a bird, and The Doctor could wager it was an antique. The four chairs at it were equally expensive, and a jewelled chandelier dangled high above, completing the lavish scene. The Doctor could see another room past the stairs, this one seeming to be some sort of sitting area.

The hostage taker was obviously not on the bottom floor, which only left the upstairs.

"What's the plan, Doctor? What are we going to do once we find out who... or what, is up there?" Sarah Jane whispered.

"I don't quite know yet, it depends on who it is," he replied.

"Oh, lovely, we're winging it as usual," she said dryly, "and did you really have to fire that poor kid? That's getting a little carried away, wouldn't you say?" He waved his hand dismissively.

"Of course not. I was just acting the part. You know... deep cover," he defended quietly. As he talked he examined the stairs with his eyes. He could see light boot prints, where someone had stepped in mud or something and then climbed the stairs. The prints were the same size as those in Paxton's house, a size The Doctor could happily classify as too large.

"I don't think MI6 operatives just walk around firing people," she argued, "that could be a tip off and get us caught, and despite how much I enjoy running around with you, I would really rather not get arrested because of you. Again,"

"It was a good distraction, and he stopped bothering us, so it served a purpose. We're on borrowed time anyway, they'll figure it out sooner or later," he shrugged. Depending on how smart these cops were would be the key to how much time they had. Half of him hoped they were all raving idiots like McGrewin. The other half hoped they at least had some working brain cells, in case whatever was going to happen upstairs went bad.

"Besides, if that happens, I'll just break you out," he shrugged. He could get her out of any prison lickidy-split in the Tardis. She smirked, with an ornery look in her eyes, then smiled.

"I would rather have it not get to that point," she returned pointedly.

"Agreed. Now, mind on the task at hand. Things are about to get dangerous," She nodded back briskly.

Sonic screwdriver at the ready, The Doctor crept up the creaking stairway as quietly as possible, with Sarah just behind him. He had a feeling he knew what this would be, meaning he knew how deadly this could potentially become. He was focused, and his wits were sharpened by the potential of danger. He did his best work under threat or pressure. Even still he couldn't deny that subtle prickle of excitement that rolled across his skin, and settled in his stomach, nor could he help the sly smile spreading across his face. He lived for this sort of thing. He couldn't refute that. Not even if he wanted too.

At the top of the stairs was a T-shaped hallway. Directly ahead was a rounded window, overlooking the home's well kept back yard. To the left was an open door, leading into the master bedroom. Much like the rest of the house, the furnishings were fancy to the tenth power. The double bed was made of hand carved wood, and covered with red, silk sheets. An ornate mirror called one wall home, while another was dominated by a dark varnished, antique dresser. A clay vase sat atop it, an old looking one, painted with faded scenes of shirtless men engaged in hand to hand combat. The Doctor recognized it as a the work of the ancient Greeks; after all, he had a few of those himself. He got them for nearly free however, as they had only just been made. This, in this time, would have set the house's occupant back a hefty sum of money. Along with all the other evidence that suggested it, The Doctor could guess the man who lived here was extraordinarily wealthy. Or he was in extraordinary debt.

The other door was slightly ajar, and he could hear a voice from within. It sounded panicked, with an air of desperation only someone with their back against the wall had. The man had an American accent, and a lazy, vapid sounding way of speaking that reminded him of that California stereotype that was so prevalentprevalent at this time.

"Look man, just tell me what you want!" he shouted. There was no reply back in the form of words, instead however a strange hiss like a snake and a loud ticking sound like an angry insect.

"You want money, I've got it, as much as you want! You can take my car, or my bling, or even my stocks, man! Just don't hurt me!" he begged.

With a sense of urgency, The Doctor rushed to the door, and turned the knob. The cold handle was locked tight. That was not a problem for him. Switching his sonic screwdriver to setting 16-B, he aimed the glowing head at the knob. The tool whined as he pressed the button, and turned it in his hand, waiting for the light click of the door unlocking.

It didn't happen. He furrowed his bushy brows. The hostage-taker must have done something to the door, either jammed something in the lock or frozen it with his weapon. He mucked around with the settings a bit, finding the defroster. That might work. All the while, the begging inside continued.

"If you won't tell me what you want, show me! Whatever it is you can take it! Just let me go!" the young man shouted.

"Doctor, we don't have time for this!" Sarah exclaimed. He continued pointing the tool at the knob. Water was starting to drip through the keyhole. Definitely frozen.

"He's frozen the lock, it will take time to defrost it," he explained back.

"It doesn't sound like we have that kind of time," she muttered, "Doctor... move!" She suddenly commanded.

He glanced back at her for a second, and stepped out of the way begrudgingly.

"Sarah, its not going to matter the lock is..." he started, but her actions interrupted him. With a yell and a heavy thump, she smashed shoulder first into the obstacle ahead. The wood cracked and gave way, the door flying open.

The Doctor blinked a few times. Did Sarah Jane really just break open a door? She looked at him, rubbing her shoulder painfully, then shrugged. He couldn't help but wonder when she became the muscle of this operation. Never had he known her to take such extreme action. That... he could appreciate.

He swept through the door first, screwdriver pointed out in front of him, ready for whatever was inside. Sarah Jane was right behind him, as always.

This room was a comfortable living space. A big, flat screen T.V. hung on one wall, while a floppy, leather couch inhabited the opposite one. A couple of recliner chairs also sat diagonal from the screen, set for optimal viewing. The glass-top coffee table in the room's center was covered in bowls of snacks and other bachelor pad esque messes that were more at home in a university dorm than a home like this. Photos hung on the wall depicted young people in times of fun, some seeming to be on vacation, others in local pubs or sporting events. A pair of big windows would have dramatically lit the room had they not been covered with bed sheets. This was obviously the most inhabited room of the home, not for show like the others. Rather than being decorated to proclaim the wealth of the home's owner, it was built for comfort, where one could lounge with some raucous friends.

The scene they walked in on was about what The Doctor figured it would be. The home's owner was a young man in his early twenties, with bleached blond hair. He had a sort of squared jaw, and deep set, vacant, green eyes, belonging to someone who partied too much and slept too little. He had that style a lot of young people that age seemed too; a striped T-shirt he probably paid too much for, baggy shorts with too many pockets, and "distressed" sneakers that were untied. It was more than likely his brain was more filled with alcohol than knowlage... curious considering the past murders.

He was being held on his tip toes by an intimidating behemoth in black robes. Far taller and obviously more muscular then the other, younger man, it was obvious that the former had easily overpowered the other.

Both heads turned to The Doctor and Sarah Jane when they entered the room.

"Hey! Please help me!" the young man yelled immediately, "he's gonna kill me!" The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the hooded man, his gaze set.

"Put the idiot down, so we can talk. No one has to get hurt here, not fatally," The Doctor commanded.

Perhaps it was the seriousness of his tone, or maybe it was all in the accent, but the intruder did as he was told. Dropping the young man to the flats of his feet, he shoved him backwards, onto the floor with a yell. He started to get up but The Doctor held out his hand.

"Stay right there, don't move," he said. He wanted to keep both he and the assailant in his field of vision.

"Thankyou! Thankyou so much!" squeeled the young man.

"Shhhhhh," Sarah Jane hushed from behind, saving The Doctor the trouble.

"Why are you here, what do you want?" The Doctor asked, not taking his eyes off the robed figure. He was nearly positive now what this was. The reptile clicking, the heavy, hissing breath, the gigantic size; it all added up to one thing. Then the creature spoke, its voice a throaty growl mixed with a snake's hiss.

"To retrieve what has been taken from me, to right the wrong that has been done," it said. Its lizard like tone was very direct sounding and point blank, with a commanding edge.

"I didn't take anything from you! I..." the man on the floor started, but The Doctor nipped that in the bud.

"Shut up! If you want to live, you'll know to keep your mouth shut. This man, this honourable soldier, means business and won't hesitate to kill you," The Doctor stated. If that young man knew how much danger he was really in, he would be defecating on himself.

"Insolent egg," the robed figure muttered.

"Wait, honourable soldier?" Sarah Jane breathed, "is this... what I think it is?"

"If you're half as smart as I know you are, it is exactly what you think it is," he answered, "Isn't that right?" he asked, now addressing the giant, "the masquerade is over, we know what you are. Reveal yourself... Ice Warrior."

A hissing chuckle escaped the figure ahead.

"Very good," he replied, pulling the robes from around himself.

This creature was an Ice Warrior indeed. He wore dark green armor that resembled the scales of an alligator, but looked much heavier and more durable then simple skin. He could make out scratches and bullet scars from previous encounters with humans, but none were even close to penetrating. It's build was powerful, with thick legs and biceps resembling small trees, and its meaty hands were balled into agitated fists.

The Ice Warrior wore a helm shaped like a bullet, obscuring its entire face but for its fanged mouth. Red blast shield lenses coverd its eyes, adding to its already imposing wardrobe.

On his right arm, like all other Ice Warriors, was a gun barrel for the sonic weapon that came embedded in their armor suits. However, The Doctor took note of this one in particular. It was damaged, and had a glowing, dark blue, tube hooked to the back via a group of wires and a few pipes. He recognized the tube; it was a power unit for cryogenic chambers, the kind used to freeze people while they were alive and put them in stasis. This Ice Warrior had used it to fix his broken gun, making a freezing laser to defend himself with. That explained Paxton's inconsistent injuries, it was a pieced together weapon of opportunity, not one carefully made for combat.

"Jesus, what is that?!" the man on the floor shouted, beginning to squirm on the floor and cover his face. The Doctor ignored him. He pressed a button on the screwdriver, aiming it at the Ice Warrior's weapon.

"I have deactivated your weapon to keep this peaceful," he stated, setting his jaw. It was a gamble. If it reacted poorly, the reptile in front of them could, and would cheerfully, attempt to beat them to death. It was good the Tardis' telepathic circuits still worked this far away, enabling The Doctor, as well as anyone around him, aliens or human, to understand each other as though they spoke the same language. Otherwise, without his explanation, that motion could have been viewed as an act of war.

"Alright, you put down yours," he hissed in return.

"This is a tool, not a weapon, but I concede," the Time Lord replied, slipping the sonic into his coat pocket. This was a time for diplomatic solutions. With two dead bodies already surfaced, and a victim in progress laying on the floor, it was proven this was a Warrior willing to kill.

"What is your name and rank. You'reYou're an Ice Warrior, a Saurian, I know you have one," he asked.

"Grand Marshal Skaldak," he growled. Ice water ran into The Doctor's vains, and he took an involuntary step backwards. He had met Grand Marshal Skaldak once before.

Ice Warriors were the natives of the planet Mars, long ago when it had been frozen and covered in ice. Saurians, as they were called, were strong warrors, dedicated soldiers, and master terraformers. They managed to eke out an existence on Mars' frozen surface, building a powerful empire. That is, until Mars heated up and started to die. Unable to use their considerable weather control technology to cool their home, they set out into the stars. Some searched for a new home, some searched for new technology to fix their dying world, others went into stasis on their mother ship to sleep untill a new world was found.

Grand Marshal Skaldak, was one of their most valued and important members. The Doctor had met him before, on the sinking Soviet Submarine, The Firebird, in 1983. The Russians found The Grand Marshal after he had been trapped in the ice of the North Pole for five thousand years. The only thing that had kept him alive was his cybernetic armor, which automatically switched on the life support systems as though he were cryogenicly frozen, which for all intents and purposes, he was. Fearing for his life, he had gone on a murderous rampage, before being captured. Once he was told how long he had been alseep, realizing his beloved daughter was long dead and believing his people were extinct, the grief stricken Skaldak made an attempt to fire the nuclear missiles on board the sub as vengeance against his captors. Only after The Doctor's companion at that time, Clara Oswald, appealed to the memory of his daughter did he stop, realizing that he would cause the same pain in others as he himself felt. It was soon after a ship full of his own people came and picked him up.

When last The Doctor saw Skaldak, he was flying away in a space ship. It didn't make sense that he was here now, killing scientists.

Sarah Jane must have noticed the Doctor's reaction to the alien's identity.

"Doctor?" was all she uttered, almost silently.

"You are standing in the presences of Mars' most fabled and respected hero. He is the equivalent of mashing Hercules, Achilles, and Alexander The Great into one man," he explained quickly. Although she kept her calm exterior, he saw the way Sarah Jane's eyes widened. She understood the serious nature of this.

"It would seem you have me at a disadvantage. You know me, but I do not know you," the Saurian hissed, the audible clicking in his mouth getting louder.

"You do know me, Skaldak. I am the Time Lord known as The Doctor," he announced.

"I have met The Doctor, and you are not him," Skaldak refuted.

"I have regenerated into a new body since you and I last met," he explained. The Ice Warriors were well aware of Time Lords by now, and how they worked. That was a carefully laid trap to see if he was lying.

"Why have you come here, Doctor?" the Grand Marshall growled. He took a step forward, in a not so aggressive yet still dominant way. As The Doctor answered, he did the same. The Ice Warriors had no respect for cowards, and he was not about to let this one believe he was.

"We were investigating the recent deaths you were involved in an they led us right to you,"

"These matters are not of your concern, Doctor" the reptile replied forcefully.

"When you start murdering people on my home planet, it makes it our concern," Sarah Jane suddenly spoke up, drawing a look from both Skaldak and the Doctor.

"I have killed no one not worthy of death," Skaldak replied.

"These men were civilians, Skaldak, scientists. That is against every aspect of your honor code," The Doctor replied, his hand grazing over his coat pocket. Every Ice Warror stuck to a code that was not only considered law on Mars, but a strict way of life. One of the most important rules, of this code was to never kill civilians. Bringing the honor of an Ice Warrior into question was a gross provocation, and usually ended in someone torn in half.

"In this case it is not! They were collateral damage while I took back what belonged to me. Even still, their deaths were deserved," he hissed back, taking another aggressive step. His shoulders were angered forward now, and his body was stiff. Agitation at its highest form.

"What justifies you murdering them? Because they stole from you? That's not a good enough reason," Sarah asked flabbergasted.

"I owe the likes of you no explanation," Skaldak stated indifferently.

"Oh no, if you think you're going to come on my planet, and kill a few of my race, in my city and then not have to give a reason why, you are sorely mistaken, Grand Marshal or not!" she finished, her jaw set and hands defiantly set on her hips. The Doctor almost never saw an outburst like that out of Sarah Jane. Perhaps it was age, or years of dealing with aliens, or the years of dealing with _him_, but whatever the case... he couldn't help but like it. She was always strong, always tough, now she was even more of both. Spunky... that was refreshing.

"They have taken everything from me!" Skaldak exploded, his booming voice reverberating off the walls, causing the young man on the floor to curl into a ball, "They have stolen our way of life, our salvation, and any hope for a future! If there are any who deserve death, it is those so called civilians who push my people toward annihilation! I am only taking back what is rightfully mine, and punishing those who have doomed us all!"

The Doctor's gaze narrowed to mere slits. How would stealing a weather globe, a coldfire generator and whatever other technology was missing doom their entire race? The Ice Warriors may have been in dire straights, but weren't that close to extinction. This wasn't making any sense.

"Hey man! I didn't steal anything from you, please don't kill me," burbled the young man on the floor through a wave to tears.

"Why him? What did he take?" Sarah Jane asked, "he says he took nothing,"

"He obviously did, look at this place, he made enough money off it to afford a house like this. You, on the floor, what did you take?" The Doctor demanded. Maybe this stolen item was enough to convince Skaldak of the impending, cataclysmic destruction of his people.

"I didn't, I swear! This isn't even my house. My dad just lets me stay here sometimes, it's his house!" he blubbered.

"Alright, who's your father?" Sarah Jane asked. This was like pulling teeth. The Doctor glanced at Skaldak, who was bristling with anger. He was loosing his patience, and they wouldn't have long before the Grand Marshal took things into his own hands.

"Joseph Lockman, he made he made the Stone Seeder,"

Finally, something that made sense. Stone Seeders, or Cliff Growers, were mechanisms that could deposit seeds on rocks or cliff faces and grow food from them like the rocks were the most fertile soil. Once again, Ice Warrior technology. Even still... that was not something that would cause the death of their entire race. Something else was at work, something making The Grand Marshal believe his whole species was in grave danger. He was missing something, some vital part that made this whole puzzle come together.

"Skaldak, I don't unders..." started the Time Lord.

He was interrupted by a loud bang behind them.

"Everybody put your hands up!" yelled a cockney accent.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane both did put their hands in the air, and spun around. Behind them stood detective McGrewin, though now he was dressed in a bullet proof vest rather than his trenchcoat. On his belt were a handgun, a can of pepper sprey, a hand held stun gun and a baton; this was a man who was trying to prepare for everything. His green eyes were covered by a pair of thick glasses, and in his hands he held a riot shotgun.

"I said everybody put your hands..." he trailed, as his eyes fell on the Ice Warrior Grand Marshal, "What the hell is that!" He only panicked for a moment, regaining his composure quickly, and aiming the gun at Skaldak."Alright, freak, hands up," he ordered, "kid, get out of here," Joseph Lockman's son did as he was told, crawling to his feet with his hands over his head, and running out the door.

"Detective McGrewin, thank you for securing the scean, but I'll take it from here," came a second voice from beyond the room. The Doctor recognized it long before she walked in.

The woman that came through that door was a tall, straight edge agent with short, ear-length blond hair. Her lips were stern, and the wrinkles on her face caused by years of stress. Her brown eyes were as calculating as ever, and she carried herself with an air of confidence that suited her position. Kate Stewart, dressed in a tight fitted pants suit, held her hand gun out in front of her, her eyes immediately locking on The Ice Warrior.

"UNIT, I should have expected that," Sarah Jane grumbled. It didn't seem she was particularly happy to see the Unified Intelligence Taskforce again, nor the daughter of her old friend Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart.

"Ms. Smith, it has been a long time," Kate said nodding to her, "and Doctor, you may take your leave, this is under Unit control now,"

"I think not, Kate, you should know me better that that," he replied. He looked back at the agitated Skaldak. His chest was heaving with rage, his eyes locked on Kate Stewart.

"Officer McGrewin, please escort The Doctor from the building. Doctor I am surprised I'm even saying this but this is not your business."

"All of time and space is my business," he replied curtly, "besides, you could use the back up," McGrewin got his two cents in next, his nerves creeping into his voice

"I'm inclined to agree with him ma'am," The Doctor just smirked.

"Smartest thing you've said all day,"

Kate ignored everyone else, keeping her gun on Skaldak. She spoke directly to him, voice fierce.

"You are a fugitive of the United Intelligence Taskforce, and wanted for the murder of two of Earth's scientists. You will surrender yourself and be taken back to the holding cells for your crimes. Comply with these rules, or you will face deadly force,"

"I will not go back to your prison, flesh whelp, I have too much I must accomplish, before it is too late," Skaldak answered.

"What do you mean _back_," The Doctor exclaimed. Had they had Skaldak locked up since 1983? How did they get ahold of him.

"I told you Doctor, this is not your concern," Kate spat. Sarah Jane eyed the unit officer with disdain.

"What did you people do?"

"What we had to!" The Doctor's companion only shook her head at that.

"Unit and their secrets," was her only reply.

"Your puny, human weapons wouldn't even penetrate my skin, let alone my armor," Skaldak stated, in a very matter-of-fact way. The grey hair on the back of The Doctor's neck stood on end. Skaldak was suddenly calm, as all Ice Warriors were where they were born to be; battle. He was ready to attack.

"We'll see about that. This is your final warning, surrender now or I will use lethal force," Kate yelled.

"Kate, Skaldak, listen we can we can figure this out. There is obviously some terrible miscommunication going on here. We can..." the Time Lord started.

"Doctor!" Kate interrupted, "if you don't help me bring in this Saurian, then i I will bring you in right beside him. Don't test me, I will do it!" Every single eye in the room fell on Kate in utter disbelief.

That lapse in attention was all Skaldak needed.

"Look out!" Sarah Jane screemed, her horrified voice filling the room. The Doctor turned back toward the Ice Warrior just as a small, egg shaped ball left his right hand, sailing through the air. It hit the floor and rolled, as The Doctor pulled his screwdriver out of his pocket.

"Grenade!" McGrewin yelled, followed by the defining bang of his firing shotgun. Kate lept backwards, knocking Sarah Jane down with a pained cry.

The Doctor didn't move, didn't even blink. He aimed the screwdriver at the grenade, and pressed the button. He hoped they still used sonic flash grenades, otherwise they were in serious trouble. The tool warbled loudly.

Blinding light burst into the room, causing the Time Lord to avert his eyes. Had he not done anything there would have been an ear shattering explosion that would leave them all permanently deaf. He couldn't disable both, but figured being blind for a few seconds was the lesser of two evils.

He heard a loud crash, followed by gunfire outside and shouts of fear. The sounds did not last long, not even a full minute. Skaldak had escaped out the window, and he doubted the policemen outside had brought him down. He was on the run yet again.

His vision started to return slowly, the room blinking into view. If he had wanted to, the Grand Marshal could have set that grenade to blind them all for hours but he didn't. The Doctor set his jaw. There really was more to this than it seemed. If he was simply blood thirsty, they would all be dead. Perhaps he was hoping The Doctor would investigate. He had every intention of doing so.

The Doctor grabbed Sarah Jane's hand and yanked the half blind woman off the floor to an appreciative nod. She did the same for McGrewin. Kate on the other hand sprung up at her own volition, and rushed to the window. She glanced out in panic, then turned back angrily, stomping back into The Doctor's face.

"How dare you! You..." she growled, but The Doctor's loud Scottish accent easily drowned her out.

"No! How dare you! I have done nothing but protect your world over and over from apocalypse after apocalypse, most of which haven't even happened yet, and you threaten to throw me in prison for attempting to find a diplomatic solution to whatever you've done here? What are you hiding Kate!" he demanded.

"That Ice Warrior has murdered two of the highest ranking scientists in the country! You actually want me to make a deal with that?" she asked back with an abashed look.

"He was scared, people do desperate things when they're scared. He thinks his people are dying! What would you do in his place?" Sarah Jane reasoned.

"My point exactly!" shouted The Doctor, "look at what you were willing to do to him, and your species isn't even in danger of extinction! He's been robbed, and something happened that has made him think his species _is_. I know Unit is involved, because I found the official papers in Hugo Masters' house. What is Unit hiding?"

"You are treding on very dangerous ground, Doctor. There is no solution here that saves both Unit and Skaldak, not with what has passed. Either way, weather alive or not, Skaldak has got to go," Kate growled.

The Doctor was taken aback. He had seen death, and caused more than his fair share, much more then he would like, but it was always the final option, when everything else was exhausted. The Moment was the final option. The Clockwork Man falling to his death was the final option. The Mistress being disintegrated was the final option. Had the Cyberman invasion done this to her? Made her so willing to kill to... protect some kind of secret? Made her so... bitter? Lethbridge, her father, was a soldier and a protector. He knew the value of life however, human and alien. Only one thing came to mind to say.

"Your father would be ashamed of you," he whispered, disgusted. Sarah Jane gasped, and the hurt look on Kate's face was almost like none other he had seen. She did not cry, but he caught the slightest tremble of her upper lip.

Abruptly, she cocked back her hand, and slapped it across his cheek, sending hot pain into his face. Then she pointed her gun at him.

"Doctor, you are under arrest by The Unified Intelligence Taskforce for impeding our investigations into matters of national security. Put your hands up and on your head," she ordered, "and drop the screwdriver. I swear to god, if you try anything, I don't care how many regenerations you have left, I will shoot them all." The Doctor smirked.

"How far we fall," he snorted. He dropped his tool on the floor with a heavy clang and raised both hands.

"No! No you can't do this!" Sarah Jane yelled, grabbing at Kate's back. The agent grabbed her arm, and pushed her back.

"Frankly, Ms. Smith, I can do as I please. Detective McGrewin, arrest Ms. Smith as well," she said flippantly.

"Ma'am are you..." the policeman stuttered, walking closer to Sarah Jane, with a less then confident look on his face.

"Just do as you're told!" she shouted.

He reached his hand toward Sarah Jane. She wasn't having any of it. She ducked beneath his arm and slamed her shoulder into his chest. Kate looked back at the commotion. That was the only chance he needed.

With one hand he grabbed her wrist and pushed it out wide, and with the other grabbed her gun and pulled down. With a surprised cry the gun fell from her grasp. He saw Sarah rip the stun gun off of McGrewin's belt as he stumbled backwards, hitting hard into the coffee table with a yell. She pressed down on the button, and apon seeing the tiny blue arcs of lightning, lunged for Kate.

Busy dealing with The Doctor's assault, she did not even see his companion coming. The stun gun pressed right against her neck.

Kate immediately stood up rail straight, her teeth clenched together, and her whole body jerked in place. Sarah left it against her skin for a few seconds, just to be sure, before letting it go. Kate dropped to the ground with a dull thunk, completely unconscious.

The Doctor looked down at her, fixing the cuffs of his wished they hadn't had to do that, not to Kate. He looked at the flustered Sarah Jane, who's chest heaved with deep breaths. She nodded at him.

"Good job," he noded in return.

"Don't move," came McGrewin's voice. The Doctor turned his head, finding the detective on his feet. He had the riot gun pointed at his head.

"You are going to explain some things to me, and you're going to tell me the truth, or I swear I will put a bullet in you," he said.

"I told you before, I'm special agent Jon Smith..." McGrewin just pumped his shotgun.

"Last chance," he growled

"Fine, you want the truth, I'll give you the the truth. I'm a two-thousand year old alien from the planet Gallifrey named The Doctor. I travel through time and space in a time machine shaped like a police phone box. You can shoot me if you like, but I'll just regenerate into a new body, with a new face and a new personality, because that's what happens when I die. This is my fourteenth body, thirteenth regeneration, twelfth that took the name Doctor. This is Sarah Jane Smith, who I've met with almost every body at some point. What you just saw was an Ice Warrior, a native of Mars, and we're trying to investigate why he's killing, and what Unit is up to. You wanted the truth? There it is."

"Wait, fourteenth body?" Sarah Jane asked, her face scrunched into a ball of confusion.

"I will explain later."

McGrewin just stared at them both blankly with his mouth open for a few moments, not unlike a caught trout.

"Okay..." he said slowly, "that... makes... no sense, which, all things considered," he motioned to the window and the unconscious Kate, "is why I beleave you." Relief flooded through The Doctor as the gun came away from his head. Maybe McGrewin wasn't as dumb as he had thought.

"How can I help?" the detective asked.

"H-help? You want to help?" The Doctor asked, eye brows raised.

"With what I just saw, you bet I do," he replied. The Doctor shrugged. He was never one to refuse help, even from the likes of him.

"Alright, can you get us out of here? Without getting us shot?" Sarah Jane asked, finally calm from their encounter.

"Yes I need to get back to my Tardis," The Doctor agreed.

"If I pretend to arrest you I can," McGrewin nodded.

"Excellent," The Doctor picked up his screwdriver.

"What are we doing once we get there?" Sarah Jane asked.

"Find out what Unit did," he replied, "by breaking into Unit headquarters."


	6. Chapter 6: Unit's Secrets

Detective McGrewin's grey sedan drove through the London streets calmly, so as not to arise suspicion. The detective himself had kept calm and cool, managing to evade the rest of the police, long before they would find the unconscious Kate Stewert. He had told the police she needed to be alone for her Unit special investigation; no one would dare question the authority of Unit. His pair of passengers, Sarah Jane and The Doctor, were his supposed prisoners, another falsehood constructed to make an escape.

Sarah Jane appreciated all the work McGrewin had done for them. Most officers would have turned them in, or worse, shot The Doctor on sight. She was just getting used to this model, she would hate to see him disappear in a blinding flash of golden light like the rest before him had. How unfair that would have been.

She rested her head against the window of the backseat, seeing London's busy streets roll by. In the reflections of the passenger-side mirror, she caught a glimpse of the Time Lord. He was staring at the dashboard, his intense blue eyes lost in thought.

She had only been back in his company for about three or four hours, and they had already seen two dead bodies, impersonated two MI6 officers, run afoul of an Ice Warror hero, shocked the daughter of an old friend into unconsciousness, and pretended to get arrested in order to avoid actually getting arrested. She smirked. All in all a productive day alongside the last of the Time Lords.

That was what The Doctor's life was, chaotic adventure. Boring moments were few and far between with him, it was his nature. One was just as likely to see a majestic space-scape and galaxies unknown as explosions and gunfire when in his company. Traveling with him was not for the faint of heart. When she ran into him and they decided on one last hurrah, half of her wasn't sure if she could do it anymore. She was middle aged now after all, not some twenty something who didn't know any better. Luckily, she had slipped right back into it like putting on an old glove.

This Doctor was different than all the rest however, including those she had travelled with previously. He was older again, not those young things she had seen twice previously. He was grumpy and brooding, even more so than the dashing adventurer with the overcoat and the colorful scarf she had run off with all those years ago. That was saying something too, because that one certainly had his moments. He was more blunt now than ever, more than willing to tell someone exactly what he thought of them and why, like he had no filter. The one thing that stood out was his new eyes. How... intense they were, like they could bore through steel if he stared at it long enough. She could tell by his eyes alone he was so much older than when they last met.

He was still the same man however, that much was obvious. He still had the same confidence, the brilliance that came from decades of wandering the cosmos. That compassion for others was around too, as testament to him taking Skaldak's side. It was just closer to the vest. The rapier wit, thurst for knowlage, love of excitement and his unique ability to jam his nose into every situation he did not belong in were all the same. He still fought for what he believed was right, even if every person in the whole universe was against him. She would be lying if she said she wasn't glad to see he was still "The Doctor", and he was still her friend.

Yet there was something that ate at the pit of her stomach and nagged in the back of her mind, just a splinter pin-pricking into all the excitement. He was here, yes, but only for now. Soon he would be off again, and disappear from her life into the stars somewhere. He would leave her behind like he always did, like he eventually did to everyone. The first time had been devastating. She was naive perhaps, that she thought it would last forever. Even still, that day he left her behind, in Aberdeen, Scotland no less, broke her heart. She had tried not to hold it against him. He was nearly immortal. She wasn't. It was that simple. He had a much longer life to live than her. Sometimes it was admittedly hard however, as he was a tough act to follow. Over the years, that pain had faded some. Time did heal all wounds. He popped in and out of her life from time to time, and she was always happy to see him. That was the meaning of true friendship; always being happy to see your friend after years, even through pain or what ever happened in between. If there was ever someone she knew was truly her friend, it was The Doctor. The second side of that coin was she was horribly sad to see him leave too, even all these years later. She knew it was selfish, because there was no way she would ever make him stay in the piddly-by-comparison London when there was literally all of space and time at his fingertips. Then again, when was caring for someone else not at least a little bit selfish?

"Alright, so," McGrewin started, jarring her from her thoughts, "how exactly are we going to break into Unit HQ? We don't even know where it is!"

"It's beneath the tower of London," both The Doctor and Sarah Jane said in unison.

"Jinx," she followed with a smile.

"I didn't relize it was such common information," the detective groused.

"It isn't, we've been doing this for a long time," The Doctor replied.

"That doesn't make it much easier, just because we know where it is doesn't mean we can get to it," continued the cop. The Doctor shrugged.

"That's what the Tardis is for."

"Tar-dis? What in the blazes is that?"

"It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space," The Doctor explained.

"That really doesn't..." McGrewin trailed off, eliciting an exasperated sigh from The Doctor.

"Its his space ship. It can go anywhere in space and time," Sarah Jane clarified. It was just easier that way. The Doctor would get to that explanation sooner or later, but this saved time. She wasn't sure if this regeneration was one of the ones that went through all the confusing explanations first. McGrewin rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"So it's a time machine. Guess you weren't kidding 'bout the whole time travel thing." The Doctor shook his head derisively.

"A 'time machine' is the simplest possible way to think of it. The Tardis is so much more sophisticated than that. It would boggle your mind with the things it can do,"

"I'll just stick with 'time machine' if its all the same to you," McGrewin replied, his eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"Don't worry, Detective, there's a learning curve," Sarah replied. She remembered how overwhelming it all could be, and how confusing it all seemed to begin with.

"What is breaking into Unit going to solve? Won't that just... exacerbate all of this," McGrewin continued.

"Oh absolutely,"The Doctor confirmed, "however, the stakes are already obviously high. If Skaldak believes his entire race is in danger, there is something far more dangerous involved here, and Unit is neck deep in it. If we break in, we can find out what is really going on." As crazy as it sounded, Sarah Jane agreed. Things were rarely as simple as they first appeared. If there was anything that she learned from The Doctor, it was that.

"Won't they recognize you immediately? Once you step foot in that place and they get you on camera, the alarms are sure to go off," reasoned Sarah Jane. There was no way of convincing her Unit didn't keep an eye out for him. Each version of him.

"Precisely why you and McGrewin will be doing the breaking and entering and I'll be taking a less active roll in this endeavor," the Time Lord replied.

"Wait! Hold on a minute!" McGrewin exclaimed.

"No let's hear him out," Sarah Jane replied. "What makes you think they won't notice me? They have to have photos on file of me."

"They'll notice you, but it will take them longer. Most of the photos are old, when you were younger. Or of your back checking the mail,"

"So as long as I keep my face to the cameras I should be fine?" she replied with a wry grin.

"All I'm saying is they're not expecting you, nor McGrewin, and certainly not together," he replied.

"Why me? I know practically nothing about Unit?" the detective questioned.

"You said you wanted to help!" The Doctor answered with an exhausted look, "This is helping. This is what helping entails! Its not just 'thanks for the ride bucko', it consists of breaking into Unit, stopping alien invasions, robbing super banks,"

"Robbing super banks? When did you become a bank robber?" Sarah Jane interrupted with a smile. It made her wonder what else he had been up to lately.

"Oh that's a great story, I'll have to tell you sometime," he replied with a charming smirk, "anyway, you know helping, assisting, consulting."

"You mean becoming your partner in crime," McGrewin nodded sarcastically.

"Occasionally." A long silence followed.

"I must be bloody crazy," the detective started, "but I'm in. I always wondered what the hell Unit really did. Now's my chance to find out." Sarah Jane caught that slight smile on McGrewins face in the rear view mirror, that same one children got when they knew they were doing something wrong but did it anyway. That tiny glint of mischief in his green eyes was all she needed to see. He would be perfect for this. Plus, he was already harboring a pair of fugitives. He probably figured he was already down a rabbit hole so why not?

"Excellent. Now, Sarah, you have your sonic lipstick on you I would assume, yes?" the Time Lord asked expectantly. He was about to be disappointed...

"Not exactly... no," she replied sheepishly. He turned around in his seat, mouth agape, and glared at her with those intense orbs.

"What? I thought you carried that everywhere. You're supposed to carry it everywhere," he admonished. He had given her a sonic lipstick, which in all uses was a cleverly disguised sonic screwdriver, when he had fixed K9 for her. She had gotten a great deal of use out of it for a long while, but not as often recently.

"Things have been fairly quiet for awhile, not as many alien threats as there were a few years ago. I haven't carried it for a few months," she confessed.

"Alright... no matter. Here," he tossed his screw driver to her, with her catching it single handedly. It was bigger than his last model, with a bright green tip instead of blue. She was very familiar with how to use the sonc screwdriver, even if it had changed throughout the years.

"I like the changes you've made to this. Very streamline," she commented.

"Thankyou!" he returned, "just... don't use setting omicron-phi, I'm still working on that one. Last time I used it, it knocked out the power for three blocks."

"Noted," she grimiced.

"Stop right here, the Tardis is in the alley to the left," he instructed. McGrewin did as he was told, parallel parking across the street.

"You just leave your time machine in an alley? Thats a bit daftdaft" he commented.

"You can't get in it without a key, or some heavy firepower," Sarah Jane explained. The Doctor nodded.

"Precisely. Besides, it's inconspicuous."

They exited the vehicle, and crossed the road, ducking into the tight ally. Then Sarah Jane saw it.

The dark blue police box sat there as nice as you please, the white windows lit welcomingly. It was almost exactly as she remembered it, like she had never left it. The memories came flooding back to her immediately; the time she first walked in it and realized it really was a time machine, traveling the universe inside it, the way it smelled like machinery and metal mixed with new car, watching it dematerialize away and leave her behind, then seeing it again decades later in a matinance room in a school. Nothing could replace the feeling of seeing that box. It was euphoric, like she could do anything. That's what the Tardis was... complete and utter freedom. She wondered if this Doctor had redecorated like those before him.

"That... is your time machine? Blimy, you people are crazy! I shoulda' known!" said McGrewin, disbelief evident in his voice.

"Ah relax, come have a gander," The Doctor shook his head. He stepped up and put the his key in the lock, then pushed it open.

Sarah Jane stepped up first, a bit more eager than was healthy, and stuck her head through the door. She wanted to see it again, all the "bigger on the inside", and what it looked like this time.

It was much darker than last she saw, the lights in hues of dark blue and aqua. Circular lights glowed from the walls in dark yellow, reminding her of an updated version of the classic "roundels" that used to make up the walls entirely. An upper walkway circled the entirety of the big, round room. She could see a book shelf on one wall, and a few chalkboards sitting about elsewhere, as well as a table adorned with candels and a fine looking chair. This all gave it a sophisticated look as though it perhaps belonged to a professor, a far cry from the whimsical Tardis she had seen from they young looking regeneration who wore the bow ties.

Multiple sets of stairs cascaded down from the overlook, down to the main console area. There was a great deal of floor space to move around, so one could walk freely around the center controller and use each of its facets. The console itself was hexagonal in shape, and dominated the room. Its various panels were sleek and high tech, with all manor of glowing buttons and funny looking leavers. A computer screen on a moveable stand stuck out near the top, able to be slid and pushed wherever it was needed.

Sticking from the center of the console, and rising all the way to the cealing, was a giant glass tube. It was filled with more glass tubes, and lit with an eerie yellow light that reflected off all of the metal surfaces. That was the Time Roter which, when in motion, would move up and down, creating that unique grinding sound only a Tardis made.

Looking at it, though different it was, elicited the same feelings she had so long ago. How could it not? After all, it had had the biggest effect on her life. The Doctor walked in, and she followed, almost like being welcomed home after a long absence.

McGrewin walked up and looked in, ducking his head a bit. His mouth dangled open in shock as he first poaked in his head, then pulled it back out, looking at the outside. He walked in cautiously, as though it were about to explode, and stuck his head back out, looking at the outside in disbelief. He turned to The Doctor, trying to regain himself.

"I... you... this..." he stuttered, "it's... bigger on the inside,"

"Of course it is. I told you it's a time machine," The Doctor then abruptly turned to Sarah Jane, a wide grin plastered on a face dripping with expectant excitement, "what do you think? Do you like it?"

"I love what you've done with it!" she exclaimed, "it's very sophisticated. Definitely back to your impeccable sense of style. Very streamline,"

"Yes! I knew you would like it!" he shouted, "I'll have to show you around the rest of the place sometime, I've made so many changes you wouldn't even recognize the place!"

"I've never seen anything like this..." the detective trailed off.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you haven't. Shut the door, we have work to do," the Time Lord instructed. He glided over the console's many buttons and switches, deftly tapping and pulling in a blur of activity. She saw him grab the suspended monitor and yank it over so it was in front of him. There was a fuzzy image of the Tower of London on screen, in all its glory. The Doctor abruptly jogged away and up the stairs, to the shelves on the the balcony. He came down as quick as he went up, and handed a pair of items to Sarah Jane.

One was a tiny ear bud like those on headphones. The other was a small box of contact lenses.

"Here, put these on. With them you can hear me from the Tardis, and I can hear and see everything that you do. I'll drop you off in Unit HQ's subbasement, and go into orbit just outside of Earth's atmosphere. I'll guide you around, I can get the maps up on the Tardis' console."

"Are you going to be able to do that? I mean, transmit from that far?" McGrewin interrupted. The Doctor just shook his head in disbelief.

"Don't be stupid," he replied dryly, "now, according to the schematics, I can pin point some... abnormalities already that could be worth investigating. I figure together, you and McGrewin can figure out what Unit is up to."

As he finished, Sarah Jane put in the ear peice and the contacts. The Doctor tapped the screen on the Tardis console a few times, before the picture came in clear as day, of his back turned to her. He gave her a quick thumbs up.

"Testing testing," he said. His voice echoed out of the Tardis console. "Perfect. Any last questions before we start?" She saw McGrewin open his mouth. "Good! Let's get going then!" Before anyone could say anything, he yanked back the leaver.

* * *

**Thirty Miles Outside of London**

Major Donald Sanders did his daily watch dutys in Fort Springfield. A rather tall and neat looking man, with short, dark hair and a neat moustache, his firm, no nonsense sillouette was instantly recognized among Unit's elite. An owner of many accolades concerning the combat of extraterrestrials, he was perhaps one of the most respected individuals in all of the British military. Having battled Dalaks, Cybermen, Zygons, and even Sontarians, his experience in combat was almost unparalleled among humans.

This, of corse, made him perfect for his job; the commander of Fort Springfield. As far as all civilians, and even much of the military, this fort did not not exist. Located in a grassy field in scenic no where, on the top of a hill, surrounded by barbed wire fencing, and even lacking a road to approach it, Springfield was perhaps the most closely guarded secret Unit had. Only fourty or so people even knew its name, and most were the secluded place's guards, and ofcorse, Sanders.

At first glance it wasn't much to look at. A chain link fence surounded it, with four big watchtowers placed out evenly on each corner to guard against intruders. There were few buildings on the inside. To the west were the barracks, where the troops that guarded this place slept. There were few, but they were well trained. Next to that was a mess hall, and the latrines. Though likly in too close proximity to each other for the liking of the guards, when space was at a premium, one had to make do.

Across from the barracks was the armory, where guns and ammo were stored. Sanders was the sort of man who made plans. Some may call him paranoid, but his armory was stocked to the gills. If his fighting force was small, he was going to make sure they had enough ordinance to start World War Three should the need arise. Most of the armorments may have been a tad outdated by Unit standardsstandards, but in most cases, they got the job done. All around were defensible positions, piles of sandbags to take cover behind, and machine gun nests surrounded by barbed wire. All of these would help in case of a siege.

The south end of the base was what the entire place was built around. A giant stone bunker the size of a small apartment building called that place home. It was imposing to look apon; windowless and dark like a prison, with barbed wire hugging tight the roof. A large, metal door was the only way in or out. It required more clearance than most government buildings in the world; a key card, a code on the keypad, a second card, and finally, three keys specifically made for the clockwork locks on the door. Only two people on this base were allowed in that building, Sanders himself, and Lieutenant Smithers, his second in command. Even Smithers had to have supervision when entering.

Sanders went through all the needed clearance, and opened the metal blast door. This was his job and his alone. Every two hours, on the hour, he was to open the door and check the contents of the bunker for intruders. Even though he was told the bunker was bomb proof, blast proof, fire proof and absolutely impenetrable, he was to check. Lives depended on it after all.

He walked into the dark bunker. Although one would not think it to be true, the giant building was one, singularly massive room. It was bathed in an ever present, dark blue light, that under the correct circumstance could have been construed as comfortable. Here however, it was just brooding, giving everything a dark edge it would not have normally had.

The building had no inner floor, just crunchy, dead, grass and dirt that had not seen the light of day in over thirty years. This was to "preserve the scene" they had told him. It did not seem quite safe to him, because he thought that a dedicated enough intruder could tunnel in. Even though the higher ups told him the walls went a mile into the ground to protect against just that, he still wasn't convinced.

The object this bunker housed could only be called one thing; it was a space ship. It was almost a stereotypical flying saucer, but instead of being completely flat it was more funnle shaped, the thickess diminishing towards the bottem. Arms ending in diamond-shaped apparatuses stuck out from the top somewhere high above. Sanders guessed they were used to land the massive ship. All sorts of lights glowed blue all around the ship, which gave off the eerie glow that illuminated this room. Even through that light, one could tell the metal it was dark green in pigment.

The ship stuck out diagonally out of the ground. A dirt trench of massive proportion led up to it where it had skidded to a stop long ago. This trench had once been outside the bunker as well, but had long sence been been filled in to hide what lurked in the building. Nearly half of the ship was buryed in the dirt. It almost looked like an alien tombstone the way it jutted up silently from the earth. Near by were a pair of its arms, bent and broken by the impact, and torn off by the force of the crash. Sanders couldn't help but wonder what this had looked like when it happened. He imagined it had to have been like a plane crash, only magnified by a hundred.

There was a doorway on the ship's side, crooked in the ships crashed nature, with a ramp constructed up to it out of wood and sheet metal. That was probably the only human made object in the room. The doorway was covered in heavy duty plastic and cordoned off with tape. No one was to go in or out under penalty of death. Shoot on sight were the orders regarding that door.

That was Sanders' job. To come in, every two hours, and check the plastic and tape. Once he was sure it had not been disturbed, that all was the same as when last he left it, he left, to come back in two hours.

For something he spent so much time around, so much time thinking about, so much time guarding, he knew nothing about it. Not who's ship it was. Not why it crashed. Not where it came from. He contemplated that sometimes, but quickly dismissed it. If he needed to know it, he would have. Obviously, Unit didn't think he did.

Unit was annoying that way. They always left out information they believed was classified or dangerous. Rather than give even a commanding officer like him the full story, they would rather protect their secrets, clenching them with an iron fist.

Protect them shabbily in his not so humble opinion. Sure, the precautions for the bunker itself were in place, but outside, he was less then confidant. Although his men were trained excessively, and well armed, there was not nearly enough of them for his liking. If they were to protect some kind of crashed ship, then they could expect the former owners to return some day. He had asked for more men on multiple occasions, only to be told to make due with what he had. Not only that, his troops weapons were less than state-of-the-art. Sure, he had weapons in bulk, but most were standardstandard fair, not the prototypes Unit had. The prototypes used to combat the aliens that had attacked previously. Shouldn't his group, in charge of a peice of potentially harmful technology, be better outfitted? Apparently, Unit didn't think so.

Then he heard it, something he had not expected to hear nether this day nor any other; gunfire. That quick, loud crack crack crack of a handgun. Then the voices started. Panicked shouts and furious yells.

In the starting chaos, Sanders took a moment to think. Who could possible be attacking them? No one knew this was here. If they did, no one even knew what was being protected. He shook that out of his head. It didn't matter. This was what he was here for. He was mentally prepared for this day, even if he didn't expect it to be today. No one really expected today to be the day everything went down hill, did they? He did not think so.

He rushed out into the courtyard, his 50. Caliber pistol drawn and ready. That thing could put down almost any living thing in only a few shots. He even managed to down a Dalek with it, something considered a near impossibility by most. Two shots down its eye stalk with that pistol however, and it was done for.

Chaos ruled the open court yard. Troops rushed in all directions, carrying guns and shouting to one and other. An air raid siren blared deafeningly, a noise only out done by the sporadic gunfire at the fort's front.

Sanders ran forward. He couldn't see any of the enemy yet, but he tried to ready himself mentally. Almost anything or anyone could be at those gates. Working for Unit, one never really knew.

A radiant green light streaked across the sky, hitting the left most watchtower in a blinding explosion. The ground shook, and the tower blasted apart, violently splattering shards of metal and wood in every direction.

Sanders picked up his pace, running full bore. More gunfire shot down the hill at whomever the attackers were. Another green flash hit the right side watchtower, blowing that to smithereens as well. Right after, a second hit the front row of defenders, sending a few men flying backwards with pained screams. The machine gun nest was a warped smoking mess from the blast, totally unusable. He could see his men returning fire franticly.

He made it to the front line and dove behind cover. He was the sort of man who led from the front. It was the only way to lead in his mind. He was never one to ask his men to do anything he himself would not do. His pistol ready, he looked down the hill at the attackers.

The creatures he saw downrange were ghastly, and the most intimidatingly massive things he had perhaps seen in his entire life. They were impossibly muscular and green. They looked scaly, like a crocodile, though he could not tell if it was skin or some type of exoskeleton. There faces were covered by an eerie helmit with red eyes, looking demonic in the shining sunlight. Some held out their arms, apon which he spotted a gun barrel. Others had normal human made assault rifles, there big hands making them appear tiny. He even saw one weilding a sword made of a strange green metel in one hard, and a shotgun in the other. There were about fifteen of them, and they walked forward into the bullets calmly, unfazed by any attempts at defence.

He soon understood why. A burst of assault rifle rounds hit one's chest. He saw sparks shoot off its armor, but aside from that, nothing happened. He couldn't even see a scratch, and it didn't halt its stride in the slightest.

His men didn't need alot of direction, as they were some of the most well trained soldiers around, but he had a plan. He remembered how they fought the Dalak invaders years ago, and the strategy they used.

"Concentrate your fire on one at a time! Bring them down one by one," he shouted over the gunfire. That was what they had to do with the nearly indestructible Dalaks, take them down one by one untill there weren't any left. It was the swarm theory; spreading out their bullets among a crowd did almost nothing because each individual was too strong. However, firing all at once on each individual at a time had to accomplish something, no matter how strong what they were fighting was. It was about overwhelming each enemy.

His men did as they were told. The front creature was obviously the largest threat, so they began with him. Assault rifles pounded the front attacker, and Sanders himself rose to fire his handgun. He saw it stumble backwards awkwardly under the barrage of fire. He ducked as a green light sped overhead, and a burst of rounds hit the men next to him downing them. He and a second man screemed for a medic but he had the feeling they were too late.

Another green blast rocked the hill, this one hitting the grass down front, lighting it ablaze. Sanders popped back up, cracking off another pair of handgun rounds, which sparked into it's chest plate. A green flash whizzed by his head, missing him by a few inches, exploding somewhere behind him. He answered with his his hand gun at the original opponent. He saw it stumble again, this time flopping backwards onto the grass.

"Good," he thought to himself, "they can be killed." It wasn't as difficult as killing a Dalak either. There had been more of those too. This wasn't going to be as hard as he thought.

"All right, next one gents," he commanded, pointing to one of the green monsters holding an assault rifle.

He ducked as a few rounds hit nearby, some hitting the bags out front, some hitting a few men to the right of him. Still, his soldiers laid down cover fire, including one that tossed a grenade overhand down the hill.

A rumble, followed by a cloud of dust erupted, and Sanders peeked back up. He could see almost nothing through the black smoke clogging the air. The grass fire was burning out of control, giving their foe a free smokescreen. Perhapse this was for the best. The fire may slow them down, or make it more difficult for them to fight. Maybe this was an advantage, if their cards were played right.

His high hopes were shattered as another green light rocketed through the smog, landing amongst a group of five soldiers. He saw them recoil for a split second as the fire disintegrated any trace of where they once were. All that remained was a scorch mark on the dirt.

He did a quick calculation of the field. He had about thirty five men at his disposal at any given time. He counted nine bodys on the ground. That was over twenty percent of his force. This meant one thing; Stage Two.

"Retreat, Stage Two!" he commanded, "retreat stage two!" He could not see the enemies through the smoke, but he cracked off the rest of clip anyway, hoping to suppress the attackers. He reloaded as the troops began a fighting retreat, covering one and other as they backed up.

More green lights rumbled through the smoke, mixing there colers with the cole black. The first pair went high, flying skyward. The second pair hit home, one hitting the sand bags to the far left, blowing them wide open, the other hitting one of the soldiers retreating, throwing him off his feet.

Upon reloading, Sanders aimed in the genral direction of the shot and fired. He stood and started backing up one of the last people to leave. He ran across the courtyard, to the next sand bag barricade, lept across it and took up position behind it.

"Alright, Artillery Team Two! Launchers at the ready!" he called out. On both the left and right side of the barricade, a pair of men hauled up tactical antitak launchers.

That was the basis of stage two. It was assumed that it would be activated in case of one of two events; either the loss or twenty percent of the fighting force, or in the event of enemy armor arriving on the premises. Those were his orders, and he had every intention of sticking to them.

They waited, watching the billowing smoke for the figures. Their attackers were taking there time, not in any kind of hurry.

"Artillery, hold your fire until I order it, we want to catch as many in the blast as we can," Sanders said, squinting into the black.

The first green monster passed through the smoke, aiming its wrist gun.

"Assault teams, fire," Sanders called out. He fired his pistol at the scaly beast, joining the cacophony of rifle fire. Sparks shot off the monster as the bullets hit its armor, ricocheting off harmlessly. It put up its wrist, aiming at the defenders, and fired.

Small, crimson balls of energy shot out in a stream. They hit the barricades with loud wumps of electric feedback. Sanders ducked down, some of them shooting just over his head. He cought sight of others hitting a few of his defenders, knocking them on the floor. They convulsed, there skin covered in static electricity, then laid still, dead in seconds.

Sanders fired more bullets, these at the head of the green attacker. His first two missed, but the last hit the red-tinted lenses. He saw it stumble back, painfully. Its head was a weak point, just like humans. Excellent.

Two more appeared through the smoke, one firing its stolen rifle. The rounds hit the barricade in front, missing all the defenders but two. A third and fourth appeared, spraying red energy, followed by another carrying a big sword and a shot gun. Perfect.

"Artillery team! Ready!" Sanders called above the chaos. More red bullets splattered the defenders, shocking them to the floor in a group. Sanders was no fool. They were down to thirteen men now. The odds were not in their favor.

"Aim!" he continued. A fifth stepped into view, with a sixth in tow. A green shot flew in, blowing another pair of defenders into nothing.

"Fire!" he yelled.

Simultaneously, all four launchers fired with a deafening woosh. They sped forward blindingly, converging on their targets in unison.

The resulting explosion sent a blast of heat backwards as dust and fire engulfed the field. Sanders took cover as hot shrapnal blew by, then peaked over the sandbags.

The creatures all lay on the ground, their armor charred black from the impact of the missiles, yet somehow, they were still whole. The field was clear of living enemies, which, by his calculations, cut the number of foes almost in half. He took a deep breath, and readyed for the next wave.

This was far from over, but not in the way that it seemed. Sanders watched in horror as the blackend bodys began to twitch and shudder. First one sat up, then another, looking down at their weapons. He saw another walk through the smoke behind. His armor was scarred by bullets, and his wrist launcher pointed outward. It was the first invader they had "killed".

A chill ran up his spine and hit his stomach like he had been punched. Everything they had done had only stunned them. Even the rockets had done nothing.

There was only one option, the final option. Retreat Stage Three.

"Retreat Stage Thee!" he called out, "Cover fire!"

His troops did as they were told, and began throwing everything the had at the enemies. Sanders ran for the bunker door, ducking under a burst of red energy shots sent his way. He made it to the door, dodging another red bullet.

Frantically, he started going through thd security measures, swiping cards and punching in codes. His nervous hands fumbled with cards and keys, sweat forming on his brows. This was the last resort, the final solution. Another explosion shook the ground just when he turned the final key, unlocking the door.

He shoved it open, and turned around. The invaders were right on top of the barricade, where only six men remained. The charred attackers were relentlessly pounding the fortifications into nothing, and more stomped through the smoke.

Sanders aimed his gun, and fired at the attackers.

"Come on! Run!" he yelled. He emptyed his clip into one creature, knocking it down. He reloaded, and aimed at another, popping off more shots.

His men got to their feet and ran, unable to hold the assault any longer. The lead runner was hit by a green blast, sending him flying along with the man behind him. The final four reached him quickly, turning to fire.

"In the bunker. Now!" he yelled above the drone of automatic weapons. He backstepped, continuing to fire his gun as his compatriots filed into the building. Energy rounds and bullets splattered the bunker as he backed into the doorway, and slammed shut the door.

He turned around into the dark room. The last four men stood huddled together, out of breath. They looked around as they panted, seeing the massive ship they had protected for the first time. If it shocked them, they did not show it. There were far more important things going on right now.

_Bang. Bang._ He heard the clunking on the door. This bunker was sopposed to be impenetrable, but he had little doubt those things would be able to get in. They were almost invicable it seemed. Nothing would hold them.

He checked his clip count. One half full in the gun, two extra. He doubted the other men were any better off.

Everyone here knew what Retreat Stage Three was. Enter the bunker, stay inside until Unit reinforcements arrived, and should there be a breach, defend it to the last man.

Sanders aimed his gun at the door, listening to the banging outside. There was only one way this was going to end. Major Sanders would do as he was ordered, just like he always had. He had no problem being the last man. In some ways, that part was an honor, to give one's life for their country. He just wished he wasn't the last man because of Unit's secrets.


	7. Chapter 7: Hidden Information

_(Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Here is another chapter. Thankyou all for reading so far, and don't forget to vote! The poll will be closing soon! Enjoy Ladies and Gents!) _

The Tardis ground and clunked to a hault, deep within Unit Headquarters. Sarah Jane quietly stepped out of the blue doors, trying not to make anymore noise than need be. Even though the Tardis just made a grinding racket, there was no reason to tempt fate. Her luck she would sneeze and every gun in Unit would be down on her.

She was in a tiny broom closet, filled with janitorial equipment. The Tardis fit so snugly she was supprised it managed to actually materialize here at all. The Doctor was indeed still an expert pilot. Even with Time Corridor Technology at their disposal, which passed through, or around walls, she wasn't quite sure which, most couldn't have made that landing.

She crept forward, moving aside a tipped over mop and carefully stepping over a bucket. She opened the closet door, and motioned inside the Tardis with her hand.

McGrewin followed her out, avoiding all the same pitfalls and stepped into the adjoining hall. That odd grinding from the Tardis began again, as it slowly faded out of existence.

The hall was very sterile, with tiled walls and floor. It reminded her of a hospital. Up ahead, the hall ended in a T-shape, with a metal double doors in the center of the wall. Behind her it veered to the left.

"Sarah, can you here me?" she heard The Doctor's Scottish voice in her ear.

"Loud and clear, Doctor," she whispered.

"Good, I can see the hall on the monitor. The lenses are working fine. Now, you are in Sub Basement One. According the building schematics, there is a server room a few a halls away. That's a good place to start. I already have some of the access codes figured out, I just can't access their file system remotely without tripping the alarms and sending them into automatic wipe mode,"

"All right, just guide me in," she replied.

"Where are we going?" McGrewin asked her from behind. He kept glancing back and forth suspiciously, like he expected police officers to jump down on ropes from the ceiling any second.

"Server room," she replied.

"Alright, you and McGrewin are going to enter those metal doors in front of you. Tell him to stand in front of them, and type in the code on the pad next to the door. The code is one, two, eight, five, six, five, one," The Doctor instructed, "you stay about three feet behind him. There is a camara on the door, that will see you if you open it. When you go through, keep your head down."

"Alright," she pointed for McGrewin to go forward and he nodded, "door code is one, two, eight, five, six, five, one,"

The Detective moved forward casually, obviously trying not to look nervous. She did as she was told, staying a few feet behind him, carefully keeping her eye out for anyone coming. As they reached the split in the hall, she glaced both ways, seeing no one. McGrewin quietly punched in the code on the keypad. The tiny light beside it turned from red to green, and the door swong open automatically.

This room was a laboratory. The tile on the floor and walls were blank white. There were stainless steel counters on one wall, with a sink and all sorts of flasks filled with colored liquids, the origin of which she couldn't hope to divine. Against the other walls, and taking up the majority of the room's floor space were big, metal, tables. Each had a few dome-shaped glass contraptions, which kept whatever experiments they were working on uncontaminated by the environment. Sarah Jane even recognized a few of them. One housed a black cube, the likes of which fell from the sky a number of years ago. Under another was a half dissected, ruddy, red tentical. She knew that belonged to a Zygon. She spotted a metal gauntlet under another, still scraping at the table trying to crawl. That was a Cyberman hand. One housed a brilliantly shining diamond, while an intricately etched pocket watch sat under another. One even housed some cute little blobby creature that looked like a peice of walking fat, that waved adorably at them as they walked in.

A pair of scientists stood in this room, but they were hardly paying attention to who was moving in and out. Instead they were engrossed looking over a math problem written on the white board in the corner.

"You should be in a lab. There is a door to the left, do you see it?" he asked. Sarah turned her head, finding the door quickly. It was just past the white board. "Yes, that one, go through it,"

She led the way this time, acting as natural as possible. She figured the best disguise was looking like you belonged where ever you were. The scientists didn't seem to notice her as she reached the door, grabbing the handle.

"Hey!" she heard an unfamiliar voice from beside her. Her heart sunk into her feet. Caught already... She turned her head, remaing calm despite the pounding in her chest.

One of the men, a clean cut looking guy with black hair and thick glasses, was looking in their direction. She relized quickly he wasn't looking at her, but at McGrewin. The Detective looked like a deer in the headlights for a moment, but he managed to keep calm.

"You Falhaven's new intern?" he asked McGrewin. To his credit, the policeman rolled with the punches, and didn't even stutter.

"Yeah, that's me, Tom," he said, putting out his hand. The researcher shook it.

"Nice to meet you! James. You know... I could have sworn your name was Robert," he replied, giving him a side glance. McGrewin did not miss a beat.

"Yeah that is my first name, but I prefer my middle name Tom, sounds more refined to me." The researcher smiled.

"It's good meeting you, Tom. Look, I'll warn you Dr. Falhaven can be a real peice of work sometimes, but she isn't so bad once you get used to her. Just make sure your papers are all neat. She's a real stickler about that. Can't tell you how many times I got ripped a new one for that,"

"Thanks for the advice. I've got to get going, don't want to be late," he said. Sarah started walking through the door, with McGrewin following right behind, obviously in a hurry.

"Yeah, she doesn't like that eather, see you 'round Tom," he said with a chuckle.

"You too," he walked through the door, and shut it behind him, breathing a sigh of relief.

"That was close, huh?" he commented. Sarah Jane nodded. There was a time or two she had to bluff her way out of things like that. It was never an enjoyable experience.

"Complement McGrewin on his acting skills. Well done. He only almost bungled the entire mission," The Doctor chattered sarcastically. She rolled her eyes. He was so snarky.

"Doctor says good job," she complemented. McGrewin nodded back, flashing a nervous grin. That would serve him right.

"I didn't mean that..."

"I know what you meant," she cut the Time Lord off. He sighed exasperatedly.

"There should be a door with a key card slot in front of you. Use the sonic on it,"

She pulled his screwdriver out of her back pocket, and messed around the settings a tad, until she found the one for key cards.

"Let me guess, you want me to use omicron phi, right?" she kidded.

"Yes, of course Ms. Smith, maybe we can set the whole building on fire this time," he replied with a sarcastic tone. She could tell by his voice he had that annoyed look on his face. Every version of him gave her that look.

She pressed the the button on the tool, aiming it at the card reader. Its high pitched, humming warble lasted only a few seconds before the card lock beeped, and the door lock clicked. Worked like a charm. Every time. She and McGrewin passed through the door.

This room was nothing more than a simple server room. One flat screen computer sat at a simple desk. It was hooked up to a disk drive and a a multitude of server shelves. There was no other exit to this room, only one way in and out.

"Tell McGrewin to stay outside and keep watch," The Doctor said, "I'll help you navigate the server access computer."

"He says to stay outside and keep watch," Sarah repeated.

"Why? There isn't that many people around," McGrewin reasoned. She heard The Doctor sigh again.

"And we want to keep it that way. If someone needs to use the server room he can stall them. This is like dealing with a toddler."

"He said you'll be able to make sure no one just barges in," she said.

"Tell him he's like dealing with a toddler," The Doctor said.

"I'm not saying that," she exclaimed.

"Not saying what?" asked McGrewin, confusedly.

"Nothing, just watch the hall," she replied, waving him away with her hand. He looked at her suspiciously for a second or two, then walked away. She shut the door behind him.

"Go over to the computer," The Doctor instructed.

"Gee, thanks, I never would have thought to do that," she grinned.

"I've gotten used to leading people around by their hand. I forget I don't have to do that with you." he returned. That was as close to an apology one got from The Doctor.

"Thats alright." She crossed the room, and switched on the computer. It came on to a black log in screen, with the simplistic Unit crest in the background.

"You're going to type in the top bar 'Stewart, Kate'. The bottem bar type Fiona Campbell zero two two."

Sarah Jane did as she was told. Now she was impersonating Unit's head scientific officer. This day was getting better and better. She could feel the years on her prospective sentence piling up.

"Who's that?" she responded, making polite conversation.

"Fiona Campbell? Kate's mother. Zero two two is the first three digits of her old phone number. Rather disappointing code. It's so... derivative."

She typed what he told her and pressed log in. If she knew Unit and this was wrong, then half the facility would be coming for her. She crossed her fingers in nervous anticipation. Finally, the computer pinged sharply, with a message saying "Log In Verified: Welcome Kate Stewart." A blue bar started loading.

"Excellent," The Doctor whispered. While she waited, she figured she would ask him something that she had been wondering about ever since McGrewin held a gun to his head.

"You have some explaining to do, Mister," she started.

"Oh?" was his curious reply.

"With McGrewin, you mentioned how you regenerate, and you said this is technically your fourteenth life. I remember years and years ago, you told me Time Lords lived thirteen lives. What happened?" She knew how regeneration worked. She knew it intimately. Some Time Lords managed to beat the system so to speak, but it came at a high cost. Usually it involved some perverse experiment that made a mockery of life itself. On her travels with The Doctor, they were caught up in a plot by a deceased Time Lord called Morbius. Out of regenerations, he was reduced to nothing but a brain in a jar, forcing a servent of his to build a new body out of "spare parts" from the aliens that had the misfortune of landing on his planet, like some space age Frankenstein. She knew The Doctor well enough to know he would never go to such disgusting lengths to prolong his life. Or, at least she hoped not. The Doctor stayed in heavy silence for a few seconds. When he finally did speak, his tone had a certain melancholy about it.

"I fought on Trenzalore for nine hundred years in the body before this one. I didn't leave that planet, not once in all that time I stayed there. You see, there was a crack in the wall of the bell tower; not an ordinary crack mind you but a crack in the face of the universe itself, a crack to another demention. Somehow, the Time Lords were broadcasting a message through that crack, from whereever they were trapped. It was a call for help."

"What was the message?" Sarah Jane asked.

" Doctor Who?" he replied darkly, "All I had to do was speak my name, my real name, not my title, so they would know it was safe to come through. Safe to return to our universe."

"Why didn't you?"

"They had broadcasted the message through all of time and space, so all of the neighbours showed up, and I mean all of them; Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheens, Monoids, Ice Warriors, Sontarans, Autons, you name it they came to Trenzalore at some point in that nine hundred year time frame. Most were hellbent on stopping the Time Lords from returning, and would sacrifice almost anything."

"The bell tower was in a small town, named Christmas ironically. The people there were simple... innocent. They never did anything to anyone, yet almost everyone in the universe was more than willing to destroy them all out of fear of the Time Lords returning, or hate of my people."

"So... I stayed... and I fought, and they fought, me and each other. Some retreated, some left, some were killed, until the only ones left were the Dalaks and I. By that time, I was old and at the end of my last life. I had seen Trenzalore before, in the future. I had seen my own grave in the middle of a battlefield, where I died in battle. I knew what was coming, and there would be no cheating it this time."

"The Time Lords had other things in mind. If I died they would never be found. They used the last of their power, possibly dooming themselves, to send me a new set of regenerations through the crack, closing it forever. So I survived and became... me now." He ended solemnly.

She understood him even better now, if that was possible. He felt guilt, becuse they may have all died to save him, and rage becuse the chance at reuniting with his own people was stolen from him. Not to mention she had the sneaking suspicion he felt like a falure every time he did not find Galifrey. She was still relieved he didn't stoop to any unnatural means to sustain himself.

"So..." she started, "how many regenerations do you have now?"

"To be honest, Sarah, I don't know. I think twelve, but it could be more. Or perhaps less. For all I know this is it or I'll live a thousand more lives. Its... hard to tell."

"Well... I'm sure of one thing, I'm glad you're still here," she replied. He didn't answer.

The computer screen abruptly blipped on, revealing a list of files.

"Ah wonderful! It finally loaded," he yelled in her head, "this is access to almost every file in Unit's database. Kate has an absurd amount of clearance, so you should find anything you want in that computer."

"What do you suggest? I don't really know where to start,"

"Let's see what we can find out about our original victim, Hugo Masters."

She typed Masters' name into the top search bar, and waited. It only took a few seconds to scroll down to all the files with any allusions to the environmental researcher. There were multiplemultiple files concerning that particular doctor. She also noted some concerning The Master, The Doctor's Time Lord nemesis. She tried to ignore those.

"I can't see the words that well on the monitor, can you read it outloud?"

"We have 'Hugo Masters: Application', Hugo Masters: Crash Site Report', 'Hugo Masters: Field Test', 'Hugo Masters: Incident Report', 'Hugo Masters: Psychological Profile', 'Hugo Masters: Research History', and 'Hugo Masters: Surveillance Report'. Which one do you want me to click on?" She already started moving the mouse over to 'Crash Site' report. That was what she wanted to see, as it sounded the most suspicious. She knew thats what he would pick as well.

"Crash Site Report. I theorized that he, along with Paxton and Lockman stole their technology, and Skaldak all but confirmed it. That could be where they stole it from, and the key to all of this." Sarah Jane nodded. She couldn't help but agree. It was the most logical conclusion.

She clicked the file. It loaded quickly to an official looking document, entitled Crash Site Report. The author was Dr. Masters, however at the time it appeared he was not yet a doctor, as his title was Cheif Researcher. She took note of the date, 18th, March, 1983.

"Didn't you say you met Skaldak on a submarine in 1983?" she asked.

"Yes, I did. He was picked up in a ship by his people. I have a sinking feeling that this might be the ship," he answered.

"Me too." She scrolled down the page. It was an official report by Masters and his time inside a crashed space ship. She started reading it outloud.

"I reported a 0800 hours to Unit headquarters as requested. I was informed the I would be part of Recovery Team One, and we would be reporting to a top secret location outside of London. My team consisted of my self, as Unit's Cheif Researcher in The Experimental Science Division, George Paxton, Unit's Secondary Environmental Science Adviser, Joseph Lockman, Secondary Researcher in The Experimental Science Division, Donald Fullmore, Extraterrestrial Expert, and Callum Lestraüd, Theoretical Physicists. This team was hand chosen by myself in order to cover all areas of expertise while inside the alien vessel."

"Once we arrived at the designated field, we found the fallen spacecraft under heavy guard. Much of the site itself had been cleared of debris from the crash, leaving only the main craft of massive proportions. A ramp was constructed up to the entrance by the soldiers to give us access to the inside. We were informed upon arrival there was no danger of contact with extraterrestrials, as all of them were either killed or incapacitated upon impact and taken into custody for medical treatment and safety purposes."

"That explains how they got ahold of Skaldak, assuming this is his ship, which there is little doubt of. There was no way I could see him going into custody willingly," The Doctor interrupted.

"Yes, he surly did not seem like the type. I don't see how all of the warriors could have been knocked out by the crash though, unless there were few of them to begin with," she replied.

"Ice Warrior ships run on skeleton crews. Only the fewest necessary crew members fly them. The rest are put into cold stasis for flight until they land or enter combat. They were probably still in stasis when they crashed, which means they were trapped that way until someone let them out. Stasis pods stay on even when the power is out so that's how they survived the crash,"

"How many Ice Warriors are usually on a ship like that?" she asked. Ice Warriors were not her area of expertise after all.

"I don't know because I'm not sure what sort of ship it was!" he said back, "could be hundreds if its a command ship, could be less than ten if it is a scout ship. I would have to get inside it, because most of them look alike. Its a screening technique so their enemies can't tell which ships are the important ones." She nodded back and kept reading.

"Once inside, we attempted to examine the many examples of advanced technology inside the ship. These examinations are detailed in Callum Lestroüd's Crash Site report. Much of the technology was too damaged in the crash to tell what it had once done, however we were able to theorize about much of it."

"Our main discovery was at the ship's center. Inside a reactor-like chamber was a weapon of some sort. It was compleatly functional by all appearances except for the lack of power to the ship. We believed it could not be removed from the ship for further examination due to a mass of fission cells it was connected to. We came to the conclusion that removing the weapon would cause an unstable meltdown-like reaction within the ship, causing untold damage. It is still unknown what this weapon's purpose is, why they brought it to Earth or what their intentions were."

"Without further access to the ship it will be difficult to form a hypothesis as to what the super weapon in the core actually does. As such, I am requesting that myself and my team are granted further, less restricted, visits to the ship so that we can form experiments with the technology on board. Please do consider this seriously, as it could further the technology of the world as we know it ten fold. Signed Hugo Masters."

"That is interesting," The Doctor commented.

"You mean how he said all of the technology was too damaged to be useful yet, obviously it wasn't because he was able to either fix or re-engineer a Weather Globe perfectly," she replied.

"It was likely intentional. You're not going to tell the people in charge about the thing you're going to steal, are you? It cannot be stolen if it doesn't exist," he reasoned.

"Unless it is detailed in the Lestraüd report," she figured. That was likely too. "Maybe he was supposed to work on it, he did have a Unit document in his house,"

"Check the surveillance report," said The Doctor. She exited out of the file and scrolled down to the report in question. It quickly loaded and she began to skim through it, looking for any signs of Unit's knowledge of his experiments.

"And...?" The Doctor chirped in her ears.

"I'm looking, I'm looking," she poked back, "apparently Masters visits alot of bars at night, mostly the kind frequented by single women."

"Oh attempting to mate, how nice," The Doctor commented glibly.

"Apparently not, he closes the place down every night and goes home alone," she skimmed more. He seemed to be a creature of habit. Every Tuesday he went to the grocery store, every Wednesday he visited the barber, and every Friday and Saturday night were reserved for the bars. Whomever had the misfortune of having to watch him had a most boring job. A bit further down she did find something of note.

"Here's something in the report. 'It is believed, due to suspicious packages arriving at the residence, his constant closing of the blinds, and generalized suspicious behavior, that he is attempting to conceal some sort of illegal activity from onlookers. It is my professional opinion that this is illegally accessed technology, possibly stolen following Masters' expedition into crash site number one two eight. As such I am formally requesting a recovery team be dispatched to his home in Islington."

"That means it was not official Unit businesse, which means, its is a distinct possibility Paxton and Lockman weren't either," The Doctor concluded.

"One could guess," Sarah answered.

Suddenly the door opened a crack, with McGrewin sticking his nose through.

"Hey! How long is this going to take, someone's coming," he hastily whispered.

"Not much longer," she placated. In fact she had no clue how long the rest of this would take.

"Tell him, Rita Monroe," The Doctor said. She wasn't sure what he was referring too, but did so anyway.

"The Doctor wants me to tell you 'Rita Monroe," she shrugged. McGrewin gave her a confused glare and shut the door.

"What next Doctor? We have to hurry," she pleaded.

"Look up Callum Lestroüd,"

She typed the name into the search bar, and his files popped up. The first one she noticed was his Death Record.

"He's dead," she stated.

"Click the record, find out when he died,"

As she did she heard the voices outside.

"Hey, who are you? What are you doing down here? Who's in there?" questioned an unfamiliar voice.

"I'm...er... it's Rita Monroe, she had to do some research on... Ice Warriors. I'm her... body guard," McGrewin stuttered. He was trying to think on his feet.

"Oh after the break out on subbasement two I'm not surprised. They only re-caught one of those things," the other voice said, "wait, isn't she retiring?"

"No... she isn't," he said.

Sarah skimmed through the death record. Everything clicked in her head once she was done.

"Two days before Masters. He was beaten to death, so bad almost every bone in his body was broken,"

"That has to be Skaldak, that can't be a coincidence,"

"Are you sure? I read her retirement party was today," the voice outside replied skeptically.

"Ohhh...ahhh... I thought you meant right now!" McGrewin tried to laugh off, "she just wants to get some work done before she goes you know, they don't call her Mrs. Workaholic for nothing!"

"That's not all Doctor, they found evidence of him working on some kind of cryogenic pod. The power source was missing," she continued, "and they found a list of names and addresses. It says they were all the names of the team members from the crash site! Paxton, Masters, Lockman; the only one who isn't is Fullmore, becuse I think he's dead!" Everything was coming together nicely.

"They were all in on this together! That explanes everything! And how Skaldak found everyone!" the Time Lord exclaimed.

"That is precisely my thinking," she replied. The voice outside kept on going.

"Hey, who is she talking to in there?"

"She talks all the time, you know that," McGrewin nervously explained.

"Actually I've never heard her talk to a soul. I've barely ever heard her utter a syllable. That's why I was so surprised to hear about a party for her retirement, I didn't think she knew anyone," the guard answered. The detective chuckled.

"I mean herself... she's always talking to herself. All the time. Most annoying person I've ever been around, jawing like that all the time."

"Doctor, can you guide me to the elevator, I need to get down to Sub Basement Two. I just heard the guard outside say they had a prisoner down there after a break out. Maybe we can find out more if we go down there," she reasoned. She had faith that she could find out where the ship crashed, and more information about Skaldak and the Ice Warriors. Plus, it sounded like McGrewin was about to get shot any second out there.

"The elevator is down the hall to the left, make a right at the first turn, then go straight," The Doctor replied, "I couldn't get the schematics for the second basement without hacking the whole system, its that encrypted, so we'll be flying blind for awhile."

"So... business as usual," she half joked. Now it was time to get McGrewin out of his jam. She put the sonic against the wall behind the computer, which corresponded with the hall around the corner. She pressed the button, with the tool making that same wherring warble that it always did. She held it there for awhile.

_Boom_. A small explosion burst from the other side of the wall, reverberating through the hall like a shotgun blast.

"What the hell was that?" she heard the guard yell, and then hurried footsteps. She rushed to the door and flung it open, running into the hall, almost smacking into McGrewin.

"What did you do?" he asked hastily with a shocked look.

"Nothing let's go!" she quickly said, grabbing his arm and pulling him down the hall.

They ran as fast as they could, rounding the corner on a slide. Ahead was a long all, at the end of which, was an elevator. With Sarah Jane leading the way, they ran full speed. That guard wouldn't be occupied by that explosion for long, they hadn't the time to dilly dally. They passed door after door on their way, lab after lab of unknown experiments.

Suddenly, a door ahead creaked open. Out stepped a man in a suit with a hand gun. His head automatically turned toward the pair of running infiltrators, with a mix of shock and anger.

"Hey! Both of you! Stop!" he yelled, pointing his finger at them. Sarah kept right on running, right at him. She was moving so fast not hitting him wasn't an option. She just preyed he didn't point his gun and shoot her.

He didn't. Instead she ran right into him, tripping and knocking him into the wall. A shot of pain ran through her shoulder. She had already slammed that arm into a door today. Wasn't that enough?

McGrewin follwed her lead, throwing a heavy right hook as he ran, knocking the already off balance guard off his feet with a painful yell. As she made it to the elevator, she slammed the button, preying the doors opened. She sighed with relief when it dinged and they slid open.

She and McGrewin piled in and she pressed the button for Sub Basement Two, and waited impatiently for the doors to close. She could already see the guard getting up off the floor, shakily wobbling to his feet. She could see another rounding the corner as the doors slid closed.

She let out the breath she did not relize she was holding when the lift stutted to a start, descending slowly.

"So... what is in Sub Basement Two? What are we looking for?" the detective asked, looking around skittishly, as though Unit were going to drop in an shoot them any moment.. Sarah Jane really did not know what they were going to find down there. She wasn't scared however. In fact, as sick as it was, she was more excited than she had been in years. There was really only one other being that in the whole universe that understood that, and he was chattering in her ear.


	8. Chapter 8: DNA Giveaway

Ever downward the elevator moved, seemingly descending down into the bowels of the Earth itself. Sarah Jane wondered how deep down Sub Basement Two actually was. She pointed the sonic screwdriver at the elevator's buttons, and pressed the switch. She moved it up the button list, lighting all of them up like the button for Sub Basement Two was.

"What are you doing?" McGrewin asked, sounding concerned.

"Making it look like this elevator is going to the upper floors rather than the basment. It might take them longer to find us this way," she answered. Anything that might help was worth a try.

"That's an excellent idea Sarah, good job," The Doctor complemented.

"What are we looking for again? You never answered," McGrewin repeated.

"To be honest, I don't know. I figure we'll know it when we see it," Sarah Jane shrugged. He needed to learn to roll with the punches. The Doctor prepared people to do that. Much of the time plans ended up altered or flushed down the toilet completely. Being able to think on ones feet was crucial to survival. It was a skill she never forgot.

"So we're just going to wander around until we find something interesting? That doesn't sound like much of a plan," the cop replied, rubbing his hand through his slicked hair.

"It's the best we have right now. Besides, this is Unit. It shouldn't take that long," she reasoned. God only knew what sort things Unit was doing down there. If they were able to take Ice Warriors as prisoners, they could literally be up to anything.

The elevator slowed to a stop and dinged loudly. She tightened her grip on the sonic. Half of her expected there to be a firing squad on the other side of that door. The screwdriver could conjure a slight magnetic polarity field, but it couldn't last against automatic weapon fire for long.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the doors shuffed open to an empty hall. She and McGrewin stepped out, and the elevator doors closed behind them. The lift would go to every floor on in indefinite loop until someone shut it down. She hoped they wouldn't figure that out right away.

This hall had metal walls and flooring, giving it a sleeker look than the floor above. There was only one direction to go, to the right, which led to an immediate turn to the left. It was deathly quiet down here, more so than the previous floor. Strange how one only noticed the hum of machinery when it was absent.

She stayed silent, motioning McGrewin to follow her with her hand, and began to creep down the hall. Even still, through all the silence she felt like it every step she took sounded like a bomb going off, and McGrewin's breathing was a hurricane. They hugged the wall, and as she reached the corner, she backed up against it.

She deftly peeked around the corner. There was a guard checkpoint down the hall. It had a single entry door of reinforced steel, with a key card reader on the side. No-doubt-bullet-proof glass flanked it, blocking the hall. She could see a camera above the door and one lone sentry standing guard. His armor was heavier than the guards on the floor above, as he was clad head to toe instead of just a vest and helm. He carried a big shotgun with a round barrel clip. Definitely automatic; she did not want to get shot with that.

She wracked her brain rapidly, trying to think of a way to get the guard away from the door. She peeked again. He had a Walkie talkie on his vest. That gave her an idea. She held up the sonic screwdriver, steadying it so her aim would be true. She wanted to change the frequency. She didn't dare speak, for fear of him hearing her. She hoped The Doctor caught on to her plan. Static erupted from the radio, and the man's head recoiled a bit. He pressed a button.

"Say again, over?" she heard in her head. It was transmitting to the Tardis like she wanted.

"Repeat, this is alpha!" shouted The Doctor sounding panicked. He was impressively masking his accent, and she could hear gunshots and screaming in the backround. "We have a red alert, Ice Warriors are attacking the first floor, we need back up! Now God damnit! Now!"

"What?!" the guard shouted, visibly jumping, "I'll be right there!" He bolted forward toward her. Not the outcome she was hoping for. Come to think of it, she hadn't really thought this through...

"Use the secondary elevator! The other is broken!" The Doctor shouted, followed by more gunfire sounds.

"Right! I'm on my way!" the guard whipped around on his heel and ran to the door, unlocking it with his card, and rushing through, leaving it wide open. Sarah Jane stood gap mouthed, unable to believe he actually fell for that.

"Nice job," she whispered, "what were all the sound effects in the background? That really sold it."

"You can thank violent American cinema for that," he replied, "don't forget about the camera." That was her next task. She aimed the screwdriver at the camera and pushed the button. It whined, and the camera physically drooped. If she did it right, which she was sure she had, it would be on a loop for the next two hours, showing nothing but the empty hall.

She and McGrewin started forward again, creeping up to the check point. She heard the detective chuckle jeeringly.

"Look, the stupid git even left us his keycard," he said, yanking it out of the slot.

"Sounds like something he would do," The Doctor sniped.

"Be nice," Sarah Jane rebuked. She was sure McGrewin thought she was talking to him.

"It does..."

They continued up the hall, quietly approaching a t-shaped intersection. They were about to pick a direction when they heard rushed footsteps clunking from the right. Both she and McGrewin shot to the wall, sucking in their stomachs and holding their collective breath. Sarah Jane shut her eyes instinctively, her whole body tensing.

A pair of armed guards jogged by one after the next. Had they turned their heads, they would have seen the pair of infiltrators. Luckily for Sarah Jane, they didn't. Rather than take their chances with whatever those men were running towards, the pair ducked down that hall.

It wound to the left, and they crept along slowly. She stopped again, to put another security camera on loop with the sonic, and before long they reached another checkpoint. This one had a single door like the last one, however insted of bulletproof glass, it was flanked by thick steel. No one stood guard. She figured perhaps The Doctor's lie had spread, and that was where those men hurried off too.

She used the sonic on the keycard reader on the door, and a light beside it blinked green. With a loud beep it, the door opened automatically. She and McGrewin walked through, finding themselves faced with a second metal door about ten feet away. She and McGrewin glanced at each other. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She had that sneaking suspicion something was very wrong here.

Without warning, a blinding blue-white light popped on from the ceiling. Sarah Jane shielded her eyes with her hand as she tried to look up at it. It suddenly started moving and flickering like a strobe light.

"Scanning DNA profile," a deadpan, computerized voice said.

"Get out of there! They're going to figure out who you are!" yelled The Doctor. Sarah knew that already, and was half way to the door before his sentence was finished. There was no key card slot on this door, but that did not mean she couldn't get through it. She scanned the edges with her eyes.

The hinges were on the inside. Perfect. She kneeled down, and fumbled around the settings on her borrowed tool. The sonic screwdrive was a screwdriver after all. Granted those were industrial rivits but it could get the job done. She held the tool's lime green head against the rivit, and activated it. With a wherr, she could see the rivit slowly spinning, and pulling out of its place. It was slow going though, far too slow for her liking. Meanwhile, the lights spun all around the room, changing to a darker, more sinister tint.

Still, she worked on the rivit, doing her best to ignore the seizure inducing lights. She did hazard a glance back at her detective companion. He was attempting to open the opposite door by force, and failing miserably. Finally, the big rivit came loose and clunked out of its hole. One down, four to go. She started on the next. Not wanting to waist any time. With a little bit of luck, maybe she could crack open the door before the scanner figured out who she was. Sadly, today was not Sarah Jane's lucky day.

"DNA scan completed. First intruder is a human male. Unknown origin. Identity not found in Unit data base. Intruder is considered code yellow," the computerized voice stated. Sarah Jane jiggled the second bolt out of the door. She stood up to reach the next two. She remembered the Unit code colors. Yellow was an unknown threat.

"Second intruder is a human female. Genetic code data states she is Sarah Jane Smith. Identity confirmed as accomplice to alien being known as The Doctor. Intruder is considered code red."

The screeching alarm filled the room with its blaring noise. The lights above started flashing crimson and the adjoining halls were bathed in the same color. Sarah Jane gritted her teeth together, half in frustration, half due to the nerve-rending sound that drowned everything in is hellish racket. If she could have willed the screwdriver to work faster she would have. The third rivit clattered out of place, and she started on the last.

McGrewin had finally stopped messing around with the first door and ran up next to her, shouting something incoherent. She was not particularly worried about whatever he said; Unit soldiers would be here any second, and she was not keen on being shot into Swiss cheese today. After what felt like hours, though it was only a minute or so, the last hinge rivit fell out of place. She and McGrewin both grabbed the door as she moved out of the way, and pulled. With no hinges left to hold the heavy steel, it toppled from the frame and hit the floor with a bang. McGrewin barreled through first, follwed by Sarah Jane.

They whipped around the hall and kept running. The next hall dumped out into a cafeteria. They ran between long tables and passed shocked looking men in lab coats. McGrewin smacked hard into a double door, knocking it open with his girth, sending a young man carrying a pile of plates crashing to the floor. Sarah Jane juked around him, uttering a near silent apology. She glanced over her shoulder just before the door closed.

The Unit soldiers were coming, powerfully shoving into the room with complete authority. It would not be long before they caught up to them. They had to hurry.

They both tore down another hall just as identical as the rest thus far. She frantically glanced back again, finding the Unit goons right on their tail. Over the roar of alarms, she heard the crack of gunfire. She instinctively ducked, covering her head with her arms as if it would help. Rounds pinged off the wall infront of her and McGrewin, and the slid around the right turn in the hall.

McGrewin put his back agenst the wall, drawing his police issue handgun. He whipped around the corner, returning fire. He ducked back as a second barrage of rounds hit the wall near him, shooting past him by just a hair. Sarah Jane's head ran a mile a minute; there had to be something she could do to help.

Then she saw it, the a thing so ordinary she had almost missed it, though it may end up being their salivation. Hanging from the wall just a few feet from McGrewin was a glass case containing a fire extinguisher.

With a face only described as manic and with no time for finess, she kicked her foot into the glass, shattering it. She grabbed the bright red extinguisher out of the case. It was heavy, which was a good thing. That meant it was full. She tossed it lightly to the middle of the hall, and pointed the sonic screwdriver at it.

McGrewin took the not so subtle hint and jogged towards Sarah Jane as she activated the screwdriver. She hoped to God this worked, because if it didn't...

The extinguisher puffed and smoked, before blowing into a cold cloud of obscuring white. It clung to the air and blocked out all vision where the pair had been standing. It wasn't as large a cloud as she had hoped for, and it would only hang for a few seconds but it would hopefully slow the men down. She and McGrewin took off.

The next hall emptyed into another labritory. This one however, contained things far more dangerous than the one upstairs. It was a very asymmetrical room. In some places were tables, others giant immersion tubes filled with water. On one table was a multitude of alien weapons; big guns with battery packs, wicked looking lasor blasters, hilts to laser knives that had to be switched on, and a sinister looking bundle of tubes filled to their brim with dark purple water. The immersion tubes had more organic things inside. One was a verdant flower that looked like a giant aqua colered petunia, albeit with a fanged, slobbering mouth in the its center. In another was a brain floating in crisp water, however it was decidedly more circular than a human's, with four sides instead of two.A bubbling fish tank sat against one wall, containing algae of every coler in the rainbow, and a mutant creture that looked like a cross between a crab and a trout. A dark brown egg floated near by it, a small porus looking thing not unlike a sponge.

There were two ways out of here, one straight ahead and one off to the left. Sarah Jane grabbed the back of McGrewins coat and yanked him back, pulling him toward the side door. A simple turn like this could be enough to shake pursuers. It was the stupid, simple things that worked more often than not. She locked the door behind them.

A caustic scent assaulted her nostrils as she entered, making her want to vomit up the morning's coffee. It was the unmistakable scent of acid, possibly hydrochloric but she couldn't be sure. They were up a set of stairs on a balcony, overlooking an enormous vat of bubbling acid. It could have been mistaken for water had the stench not been so horrifying. A set of stairs wound around the vat, leading down to a scarred, messy floor. Boxes piled atop one and other laid about down there, marked with bright red "Danger" stamps. As far as she could guess, this was a disposal room for dangerous equipment. Probably a better choice than incineration.

"Do you think we lost them?" McGrewin asked breathlessly, bending over to rest.

Sarah Jane started to answer, when a loud bang erupted from the door, punching a ragged hole through it.

"That answer your question?" she exclaimed, and again started to run, hot footing it down the stairs. McGrewin followed close by. The door up top shot open, and a guard rushed out, aiming his shot gun at the intruder's backs. The detective turned and fired at him with this pistol, making him dive back into the doorway to avoid being hit.

The pair exited the doors on the bottem floor, trying to put some distance between themselves and their persuers. Yet another long hall separated them from a second door. Ignoring the burning in her legs and the fire in her lungs, Sarah Jane powered through to reach them. Bullets shot from behind them, cracking into the walls and doors. She felt one whizz just passed her head and another under her arm.

She heard McGrewin yell painfully from behind her, turned her head to see him stumble. He kept running, a pained grimice on his face.

She was the first one through the door, and she held it for the detective, then slammed it shut. The pair left the thunking bullets hitting the door behind as they passed under an iron archway.

The Doctor's companion instinctively stopped and looked up. It wasn't just any arch, it was a siege shutter. She pointed the sonic screwdriver at it, and with a warbling wherr from the tool, the thick metal sheet came slamming down, blocking off the entire hallway. There was a card reader on her side, likely connected to one on the other side as well. She pointed the tool at that next.

Yellow sparks shot out in a sizzling crackle, followed by a puff of electric smoke. The lights on the reader's side shut off. She bent over, huffing and puffing. They were safe for right now, with almost a full foot of steel between her and Unit's guards. It would take awhile for them to get through that.

"Sarah Jane! Are you alright?!" The Doctor's Scottish voice yelled in her ear.

"Yes... I'm... fine," she coughed, "I'm getting... too old for this... garbage." Then she remember McGrewin. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked. She knew he wasn't. His chicklet teeth were gritted together in a mask of pain, and his left arm was limp.

"I think I got shot," he said. Sweat was forming on his brow and the color drained out of his face. He was going into shock.

"Here, turn around, I'll take a look," she said, physically spinning him, "sit," she ordered. He did so on the floor without question.

She immediately spotted a tattered hole in the back of his long coat, adjacent to his rotater cuff. He was hit alright. She felt around the front of him. No exit wound.

"Is it bad?" he asked through a grimace.

"No, it isn't, considering. The bullet is still inside, I have to get it out," she replied.

"Setting 280A would be best for that," The Doctor pointed out, "it magnetizes anything with even a little bit of metal in it. Just be careful, it will tear out your fillings." That would be fantastic right now. She rolled her eyes with a slight smile.

"Right... ok," she said, setting the tool and taking a deep breath. She stripped off her brown sweater, and tore it at the collar, with a bit of resignation. She liked that sweater after all.

"This sweater is coming out of your paycheck," she joked, to no laugh. Well... she tried. She put the screwdriver just at the opening of McGrewin's wound, with a shiver of pain from him.

"Sorry" she apologized, and activated the tool. The tip lit up and it warbeled yet again. Suddenly, the tiny slug shot to the tip, and dropped to the floor, with a pained grunt from the detective. She was happy though, it was in one piece, and as far as she could tell, it missed anything important.

"Alright, I need you to take off your coat and shirt," she said, "I need to wrap you up." It was not ideal but they could do more when they got back to the Tardis. The Doctor could probably take him to some future hospital where they could fix him up in minutes.

She painfully helped McGrewin out of his coat, and lifted his shirt up over his head with a stifled whimper. There was not much she could do, but she did what she could. She made a few make shift gauze pads out of part of the sweater's middle, and held them in place. She then wrapped the sleeves across his chest, securing them in place. It was messy but it would stay and stop him from bleeding. She helped him put his buttoned shirt back on, and then the coat.

He stood up, and turned around, shifting uncomfortably. He was about to speak when he started smiling, looking down at Sarah Janes torso.

"What... are you wearing," he chuckled.

"What?" she asked. She glanced down and immediately shut her eyes and scrunched her face. A pink T-shirt with kittens playing with a ball of string, that was what she was wairing. The sweater was to cover that. It wasn't like she knew she was going to end up on another crazy adventure when she woke up this morning. She was casually going out for coffee. Her face turned red with embarrassment.

"I pull a bullet out of you and this is the thanks I get, huh?" she asked disingenuously.

"Oh now he did it," The Doctor kibitzed.

"I didn't..." he stutted.

"You make fun of my clothes... nice," she shook her head.

"I was just.. I'm sorry," McGrewin replied. Sarah Jane broke out in a big grin.

"The Doctor's right, you are an idiot," her tone got serious, "can you move your arm?" he shook his head.

"Sort of, not without feeling like I'm going to pass out."

"Try not to move it. We're almost done here, and we've come too far to turn back now, and God knows what is at stake here. Do you want The Doctor to come and get you?" she asked. She knew how cold she sounded but they had to find out what Unit was protecting so badly. She was relieved by McGrewins reply.

"Absolutely not, we don't have time to lose. Well, technically, your friend has a time machine, but we're already here, so..."

"That's good, I wouldn't have come and picked him up anyway," The Doctor grumbled.

"How do you know we're close?" the detective asked.

"Unit doesn't protect just anything with a lockdown shutter," she said back. Unit reserved those for only the most secret, the most dangerous, or some mix of the two. There was something down this hall. She was going to find out what.


	9. Chapter 9: Of Glass Boxes and Mortal Sin

_(I was going to do one large chapter, but I decided to split it into two because I think it will flow better. Also, my poll will end after this chapter so this is everyone's final chance to vote! Please do!)_

Dark shadows whipped past the alleyway, followed by the blare of sirens. Red and blue beams cast angry auroras threatening capture. A pair of cars raced by, hunting for their prey at mind boggling speeds. Their speed was their downfall; it left them unable to see the finer details, like the massive shadow crouched behind a stinking dumpster.

Shame ran through Skaldak's cold blood. Not only was he hiding, the mark of a coward, but his self-hatred was furthered by the squalid place he was forced into. The alley stank of rotten meat and that sweet stench garbage produced when it got hot. If the other Grand Marshals could see him now they would strip him of his rank without a moments hesitation. He was bringing dishonor and shame to his whole clan. His demotion would be well deserved.

However, he did not have time to worry of such things, not right now. Hunted like a dog by the police, for how long he could not say, but he had finally managed to shake them. Even still, they searched high and low for him, not wanting the big reptile to get away. It was all Kate's fault.

Kate. Her very name made his chilled blood boil, and he inadvertently squeezed the sides of the dumpster with his lunchbox sized hands, denting the metal. How dare she do what she had done to him, keep him imprisoned in a glass box like one of those human zoos, where people went to watch strange animals for amusement. They kept it warm enough to sap his strength, but not so he would die. Even his cybernetics could not compensate. His people used that method of torture against only the worst of war criminals. They called it "atrophying".

He was no war criminal. He always made sure to abide the Laws of War, no matter how dishonourable his enemys proved. Kate had proven herself to be the worst of all he had met. She was not a warrior; she was a degenerate slime sack who deserved the most painful, prolonged, death possible. She could have allowed them to leave when she rose to power, could have let them go with no form of retaliation. He was not a monster after all, and he understood the need to protect oneself from the unknown. However, she went above and beyond. She began the atrophying. She allowed the scientists to poke and prod him. It was only when he killed four scientists that they left him be. He had to bloody his hands with the life of innocents to stop them.

Before Kate arrived, he could understand his imprisonment. The reinforced glass box had been tolerable at the least. The things she instated however, were unforgivable. He was bent on escaping before that, it was his duty to free not only himself, but his people. It was vital they return to their ship. However, he wished to shed as little blood, to stain his dwindling honor, as little as possible. Many of these men were scientists, not soldiers. Ice Warriors only killed soldiers if they could help it. Killing a civilian in direct combat was a dishonour above all others, and punishable by death. He refused to do so.

That all changed when Kate began atrophying him. It was, to his people, the ultimate torture. It was being sapped of strength into complete exhaustion, but being unable to rest or sleep because the heat was slowly killing him. The pain that ran through his vains at all times was near excruciating. Insomnia mixed with weakness, nearly drove him insane on some days. Most days... it only made him angry. He did not beg or plead. He only collapsed when exhaustion took its toll. He stood tall through the anguish, in silent defiance. He knew he had to escape, no matter the costs, or who's life he had to take to do it. These men, they had no honor, not towards him. He was tired of respecting theirs. They did not deserve his respect.

So, one day, he collapsed on the floor, and stayed there. He wanted them to believe they had inadvertently killed him with soupy heat. Or at least harmed him. He knew they would come. They didn't want their top science experiment to die. They still hadn't gotten him out of his armor, he was sure they at least wanted to accomplish that before he died, as if he would let them.

They made the mistake of believing his ruse. They opened his prison as nice as you please, expecting to help him. They gathered around, chattering in their foreign tongues in what could only be construed as panic.

Even in his severely weakened state, he was still stronger than them. He lept to his feet and lashed out with his fists. Every punch, every kick, ever strike that landed destroyed his opponent, with him never needing to hit them more than once. He did not care if he merely knocked them out or killed them. Some ran. He did not persue.

The second he stepped out of his cell, his armor rebooted, and he felt the soothing chill run across his skin. Almost immediately he felt energized, his strength returning. He checked his operating systems. All were online, except for his wrist gun. It had been broken in the crash. That was fine he could fix it.

From there Skaldak started to run, run for his life. He had to escape, at any cost. He could no longer remember how many soldiers he fought through, how many bullets scraped his armor and how many times his fists hit flesh. At one fateful point however, he found himself cornered in a computer room.

That was the room in which his mission changed. In a lull he synched with the computer system, plugging his armor directly into the database. His armor automatically downloaded every file in the blink of an eye, before the wiping protocol could begin. It translated it the best it could just as quickly, and downloaded it directly into his brain.

He was shocked by what he found. The Humans had raided their ship and divided up their technology like simple plunder, and were attempting to re-engineer it for their own uses. If possible, it had made him even angrier. It was not enough for them to put him and his people in prison for, as he had found out, thirty one years. They stole from them too. There was only one saving grace in all of this, one thing that saved him from despair.

They had not touched the Atomic Ionizer. They had been too afraid it would explode, and for good reason. If they tried to turn it on without the correct codes, it would automatically melt down to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. His ship was nonoperational. That was obvious. One of the stupid apes had reportedly torn out the Coldfire Generator. He wondered what else they took. He had their locations, he just had to get there and take back what belonged to him. He could then return and free his people once the ship was repaired, and they could return to their mission before his race was too far gone, if they were not already. He had to try. His entire planet depended on it.

That was what he set out to do apon escaping into the light of day, finally breathing fresh air for the first time in three decades. Skaldak hunted them down one by one. The first man he found had a cryogenic transporter. He pulled a puny revolver on him. Since he fancied himself a soldier, he showed him as much mercy as war gave. He used the transporter's power source to fix his wrist launcher. It was not perfect, but it would do. The next man had attempted to kill him apon his arrival as well, using an electric prod weapon. He was no match for the icy embrace of his newly repaired weapon. This one had fixed a weather globe. Skaldak took it of course. It was his after all. That human had no right to it.

The third scientist had attempted to best him in a hand to hand fight. He was also no match for the freezing energies. That one had the Cold Fire generator, attempting to buld some foolish weapon out of final man, the one with the Cliff Seeder, he never got to find. He was interrupted by Kate and The Doctor. The new Doctor. Time Lords... how they always chose to change their faces. What were they hiding for them to shift so much?

In a bizarre way, he trusted The Doctor. Songs were sung, and fables told throughout the universe of him, of the greatest warrior to ever live. A man who need not pick up a gun to turn the tide of the direst battle. The Oncoming Storm. The Renegade. He had helped him once, aboard a human water vessel before his imprisonment, a mercy most would not show a beastly stranger. Yet he would fight to the death to protect what he believed in; a paradox that proved he deserved his trust, and his mercy should he one day require it. He had little doubt they would meet again. He hoped they were on the same side. If they were not, honor dictated The Doctor's unfortunate demise.

The big reptile finally moved out of the cramped alley. The police were gone momentarily, and now was his chance. He was nearly to his home base. He crept across the street, into another ally, doing his best to avoid being spotted by anyone. In broad day light, it was challenging, but not impossible. He made as little noise as he could manage, careful not to bump into garbage cans and other refuse with his girth. He did not want to draw any attention to himself if he could help it. He certainly had enough of the police for one day.

Just as he thought that, another car drove by, its lights flashing vibrantly. Skaldak shielded his eyes from the sudden flashing of lights. Even with the compensators in the helmet, he was nearly blind when caught in sudden flashes. Luckily, the car passed quickly, allowing him to continue.

He snuck down a grassy hill, into the same familiar parking lot he passed through frequently for the last few weeks. It led to a gigantic, derelict, brick building. It had once been a factory of some sort, though the Ice Warrior could not tell what it had once produced.

To him, it was just a temporary home. It was the perfect place for him to hide, out of the way of major roads and on the outskirts of London's old industrial district, it was close enough to the city where he could venture in when he needed to. Not only that, it was dark, damp and chilly; all around the perfect place to hide.

He would not be hiding here for much longer however. It was time to gather the technology that he had taken back. He knew where his ship was. He only had to get to it and make the most basic repairs. It did not need to be perfect, just flyable. Just enough for him to return to Unit's Headquarters, Sub Basement Two, free his people, and fly back from whence he came, with the Ionizer on board. That Ionizer was everything. He would get it home. Especially since it was the last one.

* * *

McGrewin and Sarah Jane cautiously moved down the hall, the siege shutter getting farther and farther away. Eerie red lights reflected off the metal walls, reminding Sarah Jane just how persued the pair were. She glanced over at McGrewin, who walked with his arm held stiffly. He kept himself stoic, but his reddening face betrayed the agony of taking a bullet. She would be lying to herself if she said she was not worried for him. Infection was still possible, as was permanent nerve damage or any other lasting effects. Gunshot wounds were not like the movies. A shot anywhere, including the shoulder, wasn't something minor to be shrugged off. Especially once adrenaline wore off, which was happening to McGrewin now. They had to hurry. She didn't want to stay here with the wounded man any longer than they needed too.

They passed another door, which she quickly peered through the window of. It contained a gigantic glass box located in the room's middle. A compact machine, similar to a genorator, with multiple leavers and glass tubes sticking from it was connected the original box with long, thick cables. The animals (and she used that word lightly) inside were far more interesting than the box itself.

They looked like skinless dogs with six legs. Their foaming mouths were vertical across their faces, and filled with flat teeth. One cyclopean eye dangled off its forhead.

"What the hell is that?" McGrewin asked, his disgust evedant in his voice.

"Those are Särk Hounds. Ogron's sometimes use them as hunting dogs," The Doctor chattered in Sarah Jane's ear.

"Alien hunting dogs," she simplified for the detective.

"Ugly aren't they?" he lamented in pity.

"I'm sure they would think the same about us," replied Sarah Jane. She was beginning to have her suspicions about what this place was. She spotted another door a bit down the hall. She jogged to it and peaked in the window. Inside was the familiar box, with the mysterious machine hooked to it. In this one however, was a man who could have easily been mistaken for a human. Upon closer inspection, one would note his skin was grey and his cranium was vertically extended, ending in a bald head. He sat calmly in the cell's center, with his legs crossed, and his eyes closed, perhaps in a trance. Sarah Jane recognized his species as well; a Vogan. She had met them on her travels with The Doctor before. They were the mortal enemies of the Cybermen.

She did not give McGrewin time to look before she was off again, looking in the next window. Identical to the others, this room contained another prisoner she recognized. A short, muscular little huminoid, topped with a head colored and shaped vaguely like a potato, and fitted with a face that was fierce albeit a bit on the dull side, she remembered his people very well. Sontarans were the biggest warmongers in the universe, and one was being kept here.

This all but confirmed her suspicion, and that sick feeling settled in her stomach.

"This is a prison... for aliens," she said darkly.

"My thoughts exactly," The Doctor confirmed.

"Since when did Unit do this? They never used to take prisoners, not like this," she asked in a semi-rhetorical way. Unit did have functional prisons for aliens, they always did. They were strictly for invaders or those who wish to cause Earth harm, and were proven too dangerious to be let go.

Those however, were legitimate prisons made of stone and metal, not... whatever this was, hooked into some kind of machine that did God knows what. She hated to admit that it drove the worst of her imagination wild. It reminded her of the ant farms some children had, as though they were watching some lesser being from a lofty pedestal, and they were at the mercy of whomever watched over them. It made her sick. She hoped this was not what it looked like, but she knew that it was. The Doctor started again.

"I don't know. I have never seen these parts of Unit Headquarters. This is not what I thought Kate meant when she said 'science leads." Sarah Jane could understand the temporary imprisonment of aliens who were caught on Earth. She had seen many plots and plans to harm her home world, and they usually began with clever infiltration or an all out attack. She could see the need for caution when they found an alien on this planet. It was even, in many ways, a good thing. It could save lives, and prevent a great deal of death.

There was a question of ethics in this case. They were nearly science experiments. It was inhuman. It was disgusting. Did fear really make this okay? Cause one to say "they aren't human anyway, why should they deserve dignity?" Was it enough for people to really forget they were dealing with sentient, feeling, thinking creatures? Apparently it was.

"This needs to stop," she whispered. More thinking outloud than anything.

"You know me, do you not?" The Doctor growled. She could audibly here the anger in his Scottish voice. "I will see to it this is put to a stop. This corruption cannot continue. Listen, for now, just continue with the task at hand. There must be an Ice Warrior down there, and we need to find him." She nodded in reply. She had the utmost faith he would do as he said.

"So... what... is this what Unit really does?" McGrewin asked. He did not sound as though he knew exactly what was transpiring, but he understood enough. Sarah Jane only shook her head.

"Not to my knowledge, no. Now though... I am not so sure about them at all anymore. Let's keep going, we need to find the Ice Warrior."

"Then what? What would that solve? That green beast back in Lockman's house wasn't too keen to chat." McGrewin countered.

"Skaldak was practically in a controlled panic. He is a supersoldier, it's unlike him. We need to find out why. It was not only being put in jail, which he obviously was. He is more resilient than that. It is something else. It has something to do with his ship," The Doctor explained in his ear. Sarah Jane was not about to repeat all of that.

"We'll figure it out." McGrewin nodded, and The Doctor just gave her an aggravated sigh.

She and her detective companion continued up the hall, peering into windows as they went. Xerons, Solonians, Zocci; all of those and more were present in the glass cells. How they arrived here initially was a mystery. She imagined it was the same way Skaldak did, an unfortunate crash landing folllwed by capture. If that was what really happend. When she glanced into the next cell, she knew for sure she would find out.

The Ice Warrior they had been seeking stood in a cell like all the rest, almost as though waiting for something. His reptilian shoulders were slumped forward, in almost a dejected way. One giant hand was pushed agenst the glass, so he could lean, while the other hung at his side. Through his bullet scraped carapace armor, she could see his chest heave up and down with laboured, painfull breath. His helmet obscured most of his face, but she could see his spiny mouth, contorted in a miserable frown.

The women could not help but pity the giant. She understood that, at times, the Ice Warriors would be the enemies of Earth. They would later attempt to freeze the planet out of pure desperation of needing a home. The Doctor would stop that plot. Perhaps that knowledge of the future would despoil the empathy of some humans, but not Sarah Jane. This proud soldier did not deserve to suffer as he obviously was, not for the sins or his people, past or future. Nor should he pay for the misfortune of landing on the planet of the humans.

"If you were his enemy he would kill you without a second thought," some deep part of her argued. He would, and he would show no mercy. Wasn't that what separated the human race from so many others? They had a capacity for war and violence yes, but also one for love and mercy that was unmatched. The glass box before her was not the best example of her thinking. In fact, it proved the opposite pessimism most people felt. That was where the the Sarah Janes and the Tom McGrewins of Earth came in.

She pointed the sonic screwdriver at the steel door and pushed the button. It took a few seconds, as the lock was heavy, but it clicked open. With a hiss and a light spray of compressed air, the door opened sluggishly.

Sarah Jane and McGrewin pushed their way in, glancing around quickly, wishing to be sure there were no guards present to stop them. She re-used the sonic on the door, shutting it behind them, and locking it tight. She saw the Ice Warrior's gargantuan head turn, glancing apathetically at their entrance.

Sarah Jane took a look at the strange generator on the way by, but walked up to the front of the glass box.

"What are you going to do?" The Doctor asked in her ear.

"I don't know yet. We'll see," she replied.

She wrapped on the glass with her knuckles, unsure how else to get the aliens attention. It worked at any rate, as the red goggles turned toward her.

"I do not wish to be bothered by your poking and prodding, flesh whelp," the warrior growled, barely audible through the glass.

"We are not scientists," Sarah Jane shouted through the barrier.

"Tell him you are not soldiers, and you are here on behalf of Grand Marshal Skaldak," The Doctor instructed calmly. It was a good play, if it worked.

"We are not Unit soldiers either, we are here on behalf of Grand Marshal Skaldak." The Ice Warrior stared at her blankly for a few minutes.

"You lie. Skaldak is dead," his gutteral voice stated, "when we escaped, his cell was empty."

"Skaldak is alive. He escaped Unit capture," she replied. She wanted to stay as proper and controlled as possible. She knew it was a sign of strength among them to remain calm, and that was what she would do.

"Show me proof," it said simply.

"I cannot," she admitted, "but I can tell you he is retrieving technology stolen from your ship by Unit. A Coldfire Genorator, a Weather Globe, a Cryogenic Pod, and a Cliff Seeder." She figured that was the best way to convince him she was being truthful. He seemed to ruminate on that for a time.

"Why would Skaldak send a human to do his bidding?" he asked. She set her jaw. If there was one part he would not believe, it would be this.

"Because he does not know we are doing it. We are trying to find out what Unit did to him and the rest of the warriors from the ship." He continued to stare.

"Why would a pair of humans care about us? You never showed interest in helping us before. Not for thirty years."

"Tell him," The Doctor said, "tell him who you are working with."

"Because we are working with The Doctor," she admitted. Silence was the only reply. Ice Warriors did not show emotion through expression as much as humans did, and his green face was a slate of unreadability. The Doctor was known throughout the universe; to some that was good, others not. She appreciated the glass in between them. The only thing she could rely on was the fact Ice Warrors refused to kill civilians. Than again, if she was traveling with The Doctor, she was not really a civilian, was she. After a drawn out silence, the aliens lizard mouth curled into a smile.

"What do you want of me?" he finally asked. She heard The Doctor clap his hand in the background.

"We want to know what really happened to you. Unit has done something terrible, and we want to know what."

"I will tell you," it stated back, causing Sarah Jane's heart to pound. This was finally it. "But only on one condition." She tilted her head in question.

"Turn that off!" he suddenly shouted, smashing his fist so hard into the glass it shook. He pointed one meaty finger at the machine hooked up to the cell. The desperation in his dark voice was more than audible.

McGrewin bent down and looked over it, trying helplessly to figure it out. She did the far more simple thing, pointed the screwdriver at it and clicked the button. A whine came from the tool, and the generator quietly powered down.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh," the reptile sighed, leaning against the glass, "wonderful."

"Alright, it's off. Now it's your turn," she said.

"Fine, fine," he replied calmly, "I will tell you everything. I will tell you all of Unit's sins."


	10. Chapter 10: Desperation and Anger

_(Author's Note: I wanted to thank everyone for voting on my story poll, and all of you out there for reading so far. I have closed the poll, and the result is in; the next fic in this series will contain Weeping Angels! Thankyou everyone for helping me make this decision! Enjoy the next chapter.) _

Sarah Jane and Tom McGrewin watched the Ice Warrior through the glass very carefully. It seemed to have relaxed some and was standing tall. Whatever that odd machine she turned off did, the effects of it being haulted were immediate. She watched him roll his broad shoulders, and bounce on his heels, like a man who could move for the first time in ages.

"Tell me everything that has happened to you at the hands of Unit. What have they done to you?" Sarah Jane asked, after giving the big alien some time to enjoy his relief. Her mind had thought up many scenarios as to what Unit could have done. She hoped that, as it so often was, imagination was far worse than reality.

"I am Marshal Vorsaag, of the Iron Caste, Capitan of the Ares Dawn. Our ship responded to a destress call on this world, supposedly belonging to a long dead hero of our people, Grand Marshal Skaldak the Great, Vanquisher of the Phobos Heresy. We did not know until we arrived and found him he had been trapped in ice for five thousand years. Were we to arrive and find an impersonator in his place, your planet would have suffered the consequences for such a lie." He was incredibly direct with her. Sarah Jane appreciated that. She had the feeling if she were not a friend of The Doctor, he would be saying nothing.

"Once he was on board and we took off, he told his story of The Doctor and the fleshlings that found him and saved him from his icy prison. That was when the first act of war began. Our ship was assailed by a missile as we passed near the city you call London. The Aries Dawn is a scout ship, and is not meant for direct combat. The first hit knocked us off course, and the following barrage sent us groundward. Although the damages were minor, most were to the center foil engines, which forced us into a crash landing. Despite my rage at the blatant attack by your people, I avoided crashing into your city, not wishing to cause the innocents undue harm. Our mission was a rescue, not an attack."

Sarah Jane could not help but admire the Ice Warrior's altruism. Almost no one would take that sort of care with a group of people who had just attacked them. It spoke volumes about his character. Lives were saved by the Saurian code of honor. Someone should appreciate that.

"Many of the crew were already in cryo-sleep, while many others were knocked unconscious or killed by the force of impact. My first order of businesse was to check our vital cargo. Once I found out it was undamaged in the crash..." Sarah Jane cut him off abruptly.

"Wait, what was the cargo?" she asked. She knew he was going to try and pass over that but she was quicker than that.

The Ice Warrior's crimson goggles looked blankly at her for a moment, his mouth hesitant to speak the next words. It must be something major, some secret among his people.

"It is an Atomic Ionizer," he finally replied, "the last, Atomic Ionizer."

"Good Lord," she heard The Doctor mutter in her ear. She was not sure what that was, but anything with "Atomic" in the title was very important.

"What is that? What do you mean?" McGrewin asked, saving her the trouble.

"The Atomic Ionizer is the last great piece of Terraforming Technology built by our empire. It takes the atmosphere of a planet, like your's for example, and repurposes it to make the planet's surface livable for us by thickening it to shield it from radiation, cooling the world down as a whole. Mars' atmosphere has been so far destroyed by radiation, it cannot be repaired or thickened any further. The holes are too large and the atmosphere is too thin. Even with a million Ionizer our home world is a lost cause. However, if we can find a planet that does have a proper atmospheric quality, and geological capabilities, we can save our society from extinction before it is to late."

"Were you planning to use that on us?" McGrewin asked, shocked. Vorsaag shook his head.

"No. It was the hope we could find a planet that was uninhabited before we attempt to conquer one. The only reason we ended up here was because of Lord Skaldak's distress call. However should we fail to find one, I cannot make any promises," he answered honestly.

"This explains everything," The Doctor chattered, "why Skaldak was absolutely manic, and why all the technology was so important to him. It was all for his people to begin again. No wonder he was ready to kill for it, anyone would, if they're honest with themselves." Vorsaag continued his tale.

"Our next task was to find out where we were. Upon exiting the ship, I found we were in a field a number of miles outside of London. The ship was partially buried from the force of the crash, however that would have been an issue if we could have managed toto get the engines back on line. By that time, Unit was already beginning to arrive. Apparently, shooting us down was not sufficient, they wished to capture us as well."

"That was exactly what they did. Not enough of us were awake to fully pose a defence, and those who were were fighting with broken weapons. The odds were against us and we were overwhelmed. Unit won."

"Was that when you were brought here?" Sarah asked.

"Yes. All of us were trekked here and put in these," he said, tapping on the glass with his fingers, "and we have been here ever since."

"What did that machine over there do? Why did you need it turned off?" McGrewin suddenly asked. Vorsaag hissed in agitation.

"It was to heat the cell. It keeps us weak, drains us of strength," he said angrily, "an undeserved punishment when we have done nothing!" He started to pace in aggravation like a caged lion.

"It's called atrophying among his people, and it is the worst torment imaginable," The Doctor explained, "I suggest that you change the subject. With him weak he was not a danger, but with the heat off and his armor compensating for the room's temperature, he could very well beat through that glass and kill you. Although it is an affront to his personal code of honor, I would not put it past him at this point. If I were put in prison for thirty one years, with my main weakness turned against me, there is no telling what I would do." Sarah Jane nodded.

"How did you escape? And more importantly, how did they catch you once you did? I heard a guard upstairs say you were re-caught." She thought she spotted a light smile come to his scaly lips, but she could not be sure.

"We did escape. It was glorious. One of my subordinates, War Lord Korlark, was able to escape his captors when they attempted to pull him out of his armor and he killed them. One by one he opened our cells, until all fifteen of us were released. When we arrived at what was Skaldak's cell we found it empty. Tell me, you are not lying are you? Skaldak really lives?" She could hear the slightest bit of hope in his voice.

"Yes, he does. I have seen him with my own eyes," she replied.

"We assumed he was killed. We managed to ambush a scientist in the riotus chaos, and interrogate him about our ship and Skaldak. Korlark had managed to pay attention enough to your sorry excuse for a language to be able to speak enough of it to ask questions," Sarah glanced over at McGrewin, who's face was mixture of confused and insulted by the reptile's last comment. The pair were still connected to the Tardis' telepathic circuits, so that, while to them Vorsaag was speaking English, to him they spoke Saurian.

"It did not take the rest of us long to break him so he talked. We found out the ship had been left where we were shot down, but it had been raided of some of the most important parts. The only thing that remained untouched was the Ionizer, because it was deemed to dangerous. That was also the reason they left it where it was, they were afraid to move it, because they thought it would melt down. With no idea where our technology was taken, and no hope of getting it back, we had to come up with a new plan. We could not fly it without the necessary parts, we knew that. So we came up with something else," Vorsaag trailed off.

"What was the plan?" Sarah Jane hesitated to ask. She was not stupid and was better at reading between the lines than people gave her credit for. It was no longer in full, working condition, but in all likelyhood the Ionizer was. It wasn't that much of a mental stretch.

"If we could find our way back to the ship, we theorized there would be enough spare parts laying around, assuming the humans did not steal them, that we could at least get the power mostly back on, and we could funnel it into the Atomic Ionizer. Even if we had to cannibalize the entire ship we had faith we could get that running. If we could not find a new planet, we would make one out of yours, because we were left with no other option. We were not willing to doom our people because of the stupidity of yours." A cold chill ran down Sarah Jane's spine. She was unsure what sort of temperature drop the Ice Warriors required to survive, but she doubted humans could survive it for very long.

"I am looking at the satellite feeds of places near London, specifically fields like Vorsaag described, so we can hopefully find the ship," The Doctor said, his voice distant and distracted. He was concentrating on the task at had.

"But, now that you know Skaldak is alive and has the parts necessary to fix your ship, you don't need to do that!" she replied to Vorsaag, trying to be as diplomatic as possible given that the creature in front of her was willing to annihilate her whole species to save his own. Her emotions were so contradictory it made her head swirl. She could understand his need. If she were put in his place, whether or not she wanted to admit it about herself, she would press the proverbial red button, even if it meant the destruction of someone else's planet. All she could think of was her son and daughter, and if she had to sacrifice another in order to give them a life, no matter how it would doubtlessly torture her at night, she would do it.

It was that same reasoning that halted her empathy. It did not matter how bad she felt for the Ice Warrior, she was not about to let her children die on a frozen planet so they could live. If it caused the death of the Ice Warriors... she could live with that on her head, especially when she looked at Sky and Lucus. When it came to a choice between an alien race and her children, her children won out every time, as they would with any mother. She would step on their heads in a heartbeat for them. Even still, she felt sorry for them. They were doing this not out of hate, or malice, or greed, but out of desperation and fear. She was sure this Ice Warrior had children of his own, and he felt the same as she did.

"This is true," the Ice Warrior replied, "but that does you no good. Look at where you are, and where I am. Me knowing from fleshling prison helps no one. I would be by my soldiers sides, restarting the Ionizer had I not been caught. If Skaldak returns to the ship, he will stop them. If he arrives soon enough. Either way I can die knowing my people will be safe. Either outcome brings hope to and heralds the new beginning we have so longed for."

"We cannot operate on the assumption Skaldak will make it in time, we're going to need to go ourselves. I am coming to pick you up. Just give me a few minutes," The Doctor said rapidly.

"How did you get caught? It doesn't seem that your people are easy to bring down," McGrewin abruptly asked. Sarah glared at him in annoyance. Was that really important right now? There was a superweapon being rebuilt in a field, there were more important things to do right now than ask hear the rest of Vorsaag's story.

"I am old. Too old and slow to be a soldier anymore. I have only a year before I go to the great battlefield. I cannot fight as my companions do any longer. The war years have taken there toll," he said, a sadness reaching into his voice. Sarah felt even worse for him now, even passed his willingness to kill her race. He had spent the last years of a proud life in prison being tortured. None of this, not the prison, not the Ionizer, not the murders of the scientists, none of this would have happened had the Ares Dawn been allowed to take off. Was shooting down the ship really worth it? It certainly did not seem like it, not for all the suffering it caused, and could continue to cause if she and The Doctor did not hurry.

"I am almost there, just a few more seconds," the Doctor said again.

"You have a Time Machine! Why can't you show up right now?!" she snapped. He always did this...

"You know why! We're having this conversation now, which means I can't show up now because..." he started.

"I know, I know," she said, waving her hand. She had heard this more times than she wanted to remember, and didn't feel the need to hear it again.

She was ripped from both conversations by a loud pounding on the door. She turned to see armored Unit troops looking in the window, pounding on the door. When she used the sonic screwdriver on the door, she had also sealed it in place so no one could get through without her tool or serious effort. It would slow them down.

"What are we going to do? I'm not going to be able to fight so well," McGrewin yelled, rushing over to her, gun in the hand connected to his good arm.

"The Doctor will be here soon, we're getting out of here," she replied. She hoped he got here soon. She saw one soldier heft up a blow torch. Then she saw the light start at the bottem of the door.

"Listen to me, let me out!" Vorsaag said through the glass," I can help you."

"Alright, we can get you out of here when The Doctor comes," she said back, scanning the box's edges with the screwdriver, trying to find the door.

"No, I will hold back Unit while you escape," he returned.

"The Doctor can fit us all in the Tardis, you don't..." but Vorsaag cut her off.

"Death is coming for me, very soon, and the one that seeks me is languishing and decay. It is nothing but a dishonor. I wish to die a warriors death. At least give me that." She just looked at him for a few seconds. She hoped that was really what he wanted, because if she let him out and he turned on them, they were both as good as dead. It was a gamble, but she took her chances.

With the press of a button, the door sprung open. She watched Vorsaag grasp with his hand at the air, almost like he did not believe the glass was gone. Slowly he walked out, all the confidence in the world in his step. He had no weapons, yet he walked over to the door anyway, his hands clenched into fists and his head held high. This was a creture most ready for a fight. In fact, she believed this calm manner was perhaps the Ice Warrior equivalent of eagerness.

The loud grinding began to echo through the room, and Sarah Jane turned around. The blue police box was beginning to manifest in the back corner, phasing in and out of existence.

McGrewin glaced there as well as the woman began to back up. She head the clunk of it landing on the metal floor, and the creek of the door. She turned to see The Doctor hanging out of the door, beckoning with his hand, a wild look in his bright eyes.

"Come on! Hurry!" he shouted. Sarah Jane and McGrewin did just that, both spinning on their heels and rushing to the machine. She let the injured McGrewin pass her and get in first. As she lept in behind him, she heard the metal door slam down onto the floor.

"Ah... a good death," she heard Vorsaag mutter, almost gleefully. The next sounds were a bestial growl and horrendous yells, mixed with deafening gunfire. She did not look back at the terrible fight she knew was behind her. She did not feel the need to see Vorsaag's final moments, even if it was his wish. She shut the Tardis door behind her.

* * *

The airy grinding filled the Tardis as it took off. Bathed in blue and yellow light, it felt good to Sarah Jane to be back in the console room, and safe from the bowels of Unit's headquarters in the snap of a finger. Despite how incompetent the guards really were, believing nearly transparent lies and leaving doors wide open, (which now that she thought about it may have been a trap to get them into the DNA scanner) it was nice not to get shot at for five minutes. It was temporary however; she was sure very soon they would be arriving at the crashed space ship, and she doubted it was unoccupied.

"Good to have you back on board Ms. Smith," smiled The Doctor, hopping over to the console and fiddling around with buttons and levers, "and to see you're alright."

"Here," she said, tossing the sonic screwdriver to him. He caught it easily and slipped it into his jacket pocket, shooting her a nod. "So we can drop McGrewin off at a hospital, and head for the ship, yeah?" Sarah walked over to the control center and leaned on it.

"No, there's no time, we have to head for the ship now, before it's too late," the Time Lord replied, adjusting a different set of levers absently. Sarah Jane snorted. He was really going to deny a wounded man medical help?

"You're joking right? He's been shot, he needs medical attention."

"I told you, there is no time, the Ice Warriors have probably beat us there already," he replied matter-of-factly. He was staring at one of the movable screens, not at all paying attention. She grit her teeth, and snapped her fingers at him a few times.

"Hey, hey! Look at me when I'm talking to you!" she said forcefully. She wasn't one of those twenty somethings he could just ignore, "This is the Tardis, you can take him to whatever time, where ever you want and be back like nothing happened. Why not?" The question was more rhetorical, yet he answered anyway, eyeing her with a steely gaze.

"Because I want to finish this. This has the capacity to change history as we know it and I will not take the chance of messing that up for him," he motioned at the detective, who was now sucking his teeth in pain.

"It's alright, Ms. Smith, you wrapped it up fairly well, I'll be fine until this is all done," grunted McGrewin. Sarah Jane held up one finger to quiet him, while planting the other hand on her hip.

"You stay out of this," she said, before addressing The Doctor again, "he got shot because of us. You don't need to make this hard, just drop him off, it will take a few seconds, no harm, no foul" She thought she was being very reasonable about this. It was not a stretch on the technology or the mission. She doubted it would have any sort of effect on the present situation at all. Why he was being so harsh was beyond her. His name is "The Doctor" after all and McGrewin was shot for God's sake. She wasn't telling him to stop at a hospital for a paper cut. Was this really asking too muc? The Doctor just sighed.

"Look, Sarah, the needs of the meny out weigh the needs of the few. Once this is over, I'll take him where ever you want, however as long as there is a group of Ice Warriors putting together an Ionizer, I will not put your planet in possible jeopardy for him, no matter how much you want me to. You don't always get what you want, Sarah," he said flippantly, running his hand through his silver hair, before returning his attention to the console.

She did not say anything back right away, just stared at him dumbfounded. Did he really just say that to her? It wasn't the rejection of taking McGrewin to the hospital. It was the way in which she was rejected. What he just said was incredibly rude, "you don't always get what you want, Sarah," like she was some spoiled, petulant five year old who wanted a new, expensive toy. Granted, with their impossibly wide age difference she may as well be a five year old to him, but she wasn't. She suddenly found herself boiling with anger. What right did he have, after everything they had done together, after everything he put her through, to treat her like a child? To imply she always got everything she wanted like some entitled brat, because she cecertainly didn't.

"I don't always get what I want..." she repeated dryly, "are you sure you really want to go there?" The Doctor looked up at her, with a look of condescending aggravation on his old face. That was it for her, all it took to push her over the edge. He could treat anyone else that way but not _her._

"How about the the time I wanted your help in that vent but you were angry with me and wouldn't guide me through? Did I get what I want then? Or maybe the time I went blind in a laboratory and wandered into the bottled brain of a Time Lord? I must have wanted that right? Sence apparently, I always get what I want." she nodded insincerely.

"Sarah, I didn't mean..." he started. She cut him off.

"Or maybe that time against the Sontarans. Remember that? I must have wanted to be implemented with a device that made me hallucinate my worst fears, right?" she suddenly felt herself hold back tears when thinking of her last point, "and you may think you're right about everything all the time, but I damn sure didn't want to be left behind in Scotland when you made the executive decision we weren't going to travel together!" She realised too late she shouted the last point.

The Doctor's expression was blank, though she thought she just may have seen a tiny glint of sadness pass over his stony facade. He didn't answer, just stared at her like a dog that had just been sprayed with water. She looked back, feeling anger but with guilt peeking through for what had just passed through her lips. She then turned to McGrewin, who was wide eyed and tongue twisted. What was an outsider really to say after watching a pair of time travellers get in a quarrel?

"Come on, Tom, there's probably something in one of the medicine chests on board," he said, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands, suddenly finding herself with a headache, and motioning for him to come. She walked passed the Doctor, who still stared where she had just been standing.

"I'll let you know when we land," he said stubbornly. As if she expected anything else. He may be the one person in the universe she knew she could rely on and trust, but he was also the only one who could drive her this crazy.


	11. Chapter 11: The Ares Dawn

_(Author's Note: I must apologise for the long wait. It has been a rough few weeks for various personal reasons. This chapter is kinda filler but I hope it is enjoyable just the same. Thanks guys and gals) _

The Tardis ground to a clunking hault in a desolate, grassy field. It was only a short time before The Doctor himself opened the door and stepped out, adjusting his jacket, and looking about.

He stood at the bottom of a steep hill. The knee high grass all around waved benevolently in the light breeze, a breeze that comferted his old face. With a bright blue sky marked with fluffy white clouds, it perhaps seemed like the perfect day, the one children waited all summer long for.

Up the hill was where his attention ended up focused, for even from here he could see a barbed wire fence peeking up from the grass, indicative of the base beyond. He knew right away he was in the right place just by that alone.

Sarah Jane followed him out shortly after. She still had a frown on her face, and he could tell she was still angry at him. It was in her dark eyes, the way she glared at him.

"Where is McGrewin?" he asked her after not seeing him come out.

"He's staying behind in the infirmary. He's been shot once already today, he doesn't need it to happen again," she answered shortly. Yes... she was still mad at him. He knew how cold it must seem, his unwillingness to bring McGrewin to the hospital. It was not out of rancor or malice; in fact, under any normal circumstance, he would cheerfully drop the detective off at the hospital of his choosing, literally any time, anywhere.

These were not normal circumstances. So many things in time were in transit, without set outcomes. Should they turn out different than they were supposed to, (and "supposed to" was a relative term at this point) the effects, not just across Earth but the entire universe could be catastrophic. Assuming the Ice Warriors did terraform Earth completely and begin their empire again, humans would never spread across the galaxy. So many inventions, so many works of art, whole events would never happen. Entire lives would be erased in the blink of an eye, because their ancestors had never existed or died in a winter that never ended. Who could know what the Ice Warriors would do if they rebuilt here and now instead of thousands years from now in a whole different galaxy. Perhaps they would be the greatest conquerors to ever live, rivaling the Dalaks and the Cybermen. Or they would sputter and die because Earth seemed to be the favorite target of any invader trying to make their bones of conquest. Who could really know? The Doctor certainly did not, and he was not about to find out. He was not willing to take the risk.

He could still understand her anger regardless. She was perhaps the most empathetic person he had ever encountered. She even understood her enemies, and felt for them. She always attempted to help the injured and hurt, no matter the cost. It was one of the reasons he admired her so.

In this case, to him at least, there was a time and place for that selflessness, and with this urgent of a situation, it was not right now. If he believed McGrewin was in danger of bleeding to death or the like, he would do something. His injury was through the shoulder, and although a gunshot was serious, it could wait. For right now anyway. Besides, he had enough medical supplies on board that they could take care of him for the time being. He wasn't in any real danger. It did not matter what Sarah Jane threw at him, he would not relent... no matter how it hurt.

And it did hurt. He stayed cool and stony but her words stung more then the poison of the Judis Tree, and cut deeper than any knife. She threw their adventures in his face, all the bad things that, while rightly his fault, were a foundation of a deep friendship that spanned eons. Perhaps he had been out of line with what he said, though at the time it was an offhand remark he meant nothing by. Obviously she had been hurt by it, and still carried some scars of the time they spent together, particularly him leaving her behind. He had to admit he did not often think of how his adventures effected those he left behind. It was not to say it had never crossed his mind; to the contrary he had meditated on it many times. However, it was not normally at the for front of his thoughts. Did his floating in and out of people's lives damage them more than he had thought? He normally only took into account the physical dangers faced by the people who once travelled with him, the fact his enemies could harm them to get to him. It was rare for him to consider the psychological aftermath. He looked at it as a necessary evil. When things became too dangerous, or his companion simply wanted to leave, he dropped them back into their normal lives. Much of the time, he hoped, perhaps falsely, that the amazing adventures would more than make up for him leaving. As he had seen in Sarah twice now, although there was little doubt she had enjoyed their escapades, they had also left some wounds that, all this time later, had not healed. Every coin has two sides, and it was quite possible this was the duality of the adventures in the Tardis: one had to carry the good and the bad with them long after whatever happened was over. Was that not the way life was though? Not just the extraordinary ones, but the normal ones as well? Everyone had to carry everything that happened to them, even a Time Lord and his companions.

Regardless of what she said to him, no matter how bad it was, or how it effected him deep inside, he said nothing back, even though he could have. He could have torn into her with all of the vitriol two thousand years of knowledge afforded. One got quite good at verble evisceration after that long wandering the cosmos; he had little doubt he could insult her in ways she would never even think of. But he could never do that to Sarah Jane. He cared for her too much to hurt her. Other companions he may have ejected from the Tardis for speaking to him that way. He may be understanding when it came to raw emotions, but he had his limits. He and Sarah however, had too much history for that. Honestly, he was not even angry with her. He felt more guilt than anger. That was likely the point. Only Sarah Jane could make a two thousand year old man feel guilty.

"What did you do for him?" The Doctor asked, genuinely concerned.

"Wrapped up his shoulder with Anti-Bleed Gauze, shot him up with some pain killers and made him take Stim-pills. He's fine for right now but he will need to see a Doctor," she replied eyeing him, then smirking slightly, "a medical Doctor."

"I knew he would be fine," he replied, then inwardly cringed. He just had to make it worse, didn't he? Even though it was true. All his medical supplies were from 3098, back when they had the good stuff.

"I'm sure you did, but you didn't need to be a massive git about it," she said back coldly, crossing her arms, "can we get on with this please? If my planet has a chance of being frozen today, I would rather not spend the last warm moments I'll have arguing with you instead of stopping the Ice Warriors." He nodded back. At least she could put this aside for right now enough to work together. At least that hadn't changed.

The pair started climbing the steep hill. He noted the smell of burnt grass in the air, and the ever so slight smoky whisps that passed him by. There had been a fire here recently. They climbed a bit further and found a scorched crater, surrounded by blackened grass. The burn marks streteched up the hill to the entrance of the fence. He could see just the slightest glint of hoarfrost upon the dirt, and he knelt to feel it. It had only just begun to melt. This was almost certainly the work of the Ice Warriors; there had been a fire and they froze it out. Why would they do that he wondered, but soon answered his own question. They probably did not care if the Unit base burned to the ground, but they didn't need the fire possibly distracting them from their task. The presence of ice was indicative of one of two things; either they had access to their cryogenic technology again, which meant the ship was already further along than he had expected, or Skaldak had arrived already. Upon closer inspection, it was too uniform to be Skaldak's peiced-together weapon. It was probably something the humans left behind because they were too afraid to touch it.

Sarah Jane and he continued up the hill, passing more battle scorched grass. The fight that had gone on here had obviously been a violent affair. They reached the summit and found themselves standing in front of a drab military base. Sand bags partially blocked entry through the tattered barbed wire fence, paving the way into a war wrought aftermath. In all directions lay bodys of killed soldiers. Some were burned beyond recognition and still smoking, others appeared to have been shot with human weapons. He dared not look where the craters pockmarked the field. He had seen and would see enough of his share of carnage. He had no reason to put even more images in his mind.

The relative simplicity of the base surprised him. There were only three buildings, though one dwarfed the rest in sheer mass. A gigantic stone bunker loomed ahead, leaving an intimidating shadow in its wake. With no windows and a singular door on its bleak exterior, he could have mistaken it for a prison.

"The Ice Warriors did all of this? My God," Sarah Jane gasped quietly next to him. The Doctor just shook his head.

"They're desperate, more desperate than they have ever been. They would kill anyone or anything that gets in the way of setting up the Ionizer. If my calculations are correct, that bunker there is the right size to hold an Ice Warrior ship," he replied, pointing a long finger at the building.

"What, they just built around it? And I bet they're surprised that the former owners actually came back," she said back sarcastically. She still had that angry edge to her voice, despite her willingness to let this go for the time being.

"They probably expected it to happen at some point but were still surprised when it did. Time has a bad habit to lulling people into a false sense of security," The Doctor said, "stay low and quiet. There is certainly a whole crew of Ice Warriors on board. If Skaldak is among them, we hopefully have nothing to worry about. If he isn't, this could get violent quickly." She nodded in return.

As they crept forward, The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. He had the sinking feeling he would need it very soon. Things had that deadly silence, the calm before a violent storm.

It did not take them long to reach the bunker door, which was torn off the hinges. The Doctor could tell it had once been beyond secure, as evidence by the multiple locks and electronic readers. Now it was dented beyond recognition, with a hole forcibly punched into the center. Considering the thickness of the steel, that was indeed an extraordinary feat, even for and Ice Warrior. Which ever one did that must have been incredibly strong, or terribly angry. He craned his head around the corner, glancing into the darkened bunker.

There sat the damaged Ice Warrior ship. It's funnle-shaped form was half buried in soil and some of the stabilizer arms were violently torn off. This was indeed the same craft The Doctor had seen in the Arctic all those years ago, albeit, now it was worse for the ware. Even still the broken vessel exuded an eerie blue glow that reminded him of his own dark tomb he once saw on the planet Trenzalor. He could not help but feel the same bleak cold he did then, as if the spectral light festered with a power that drained any happiness one felt and snuffed it out like a candle.

A shadowy, ramshackle ramp led up to the door, which hung wide open. At the foot of the ramp lay five bodies piled atop each other, all humans and wearing military uniforms like those outside. One still clutched a chrome handgun in his hand in a hard death grip. He imagined the man must have gone down fighting, probably shooting during his last breaths. A proud death to any soldier, he imagined.

He shined his screwdriver back and forth through the room, the green tip lit up like a flashlight. As far as he could see, there was nothing lurking in the deep shadows, although with such a large room, he could not really tell. He knew the Ice Warriors well; if one was going to attack, it would have already. They were not much for stealth, in fact, in most cases, to them any sort of sneak attack was considered a vile dishonor. Yet, The Doctor could never be too careful.

He motioned for Sarah Jane to follow and he crept into the bunker. He jotted quietly up toward the ramp, shining his green light around the room once again, just to be sure. He put one foot onto the ramshackle, sheet metal bridge and pushed his weight on it. He could hear it creek and whine but it was at least stable enough to hold their weight. If a crew of Ice Warriors cold climb it, so could they.

Slowly he started up it. He could feel it jiggle beneath his feet slightly, but he kept his steps calm and easy. He glanced back at Sarah, who was carefully doing the same, a furrowed look of concentration on her face.

"This seems so safe," he heard her murmer sarcastically under her breath.

It would have been a lie to say he was not relieved to reach the stability of the ship's entry hatch. The feeling of the floor collapsing any second was not one he enjoyed. Sarah Jane followed suit, and he grabbed her hand as she crossed the gap between the ramp and ship, steadying his old friend.

The air lock was open, and he could see into the dank ship. The hall ahead delved down into at a sharp angle; unsurprising considering that the ship was buried as such. The cold air coming from within was bone chilling. He could already see his breath and he was not even inside yet.

"Where are we going exactly?" Sarah Jane whispered.

"Control room. The Ice Warriors are practical beings, the Ionizer will be in the same place they control the ship. It is so the crew can access it while in transit," he replied.

He and Sarah Jane started into the ship's interior, trying to stay as silent as the metal floors would allow. It was far steeper than it had looked from within, and the low lights made it harder to walk. Neither of them wanted to fall, and make a racket the Saurians would surely hear. They had the element of surprise right now, and he saw no reason to give it up.

The halls of the ship were barely lit by cold blue lights shining from the walls and ceiling, flickering on and off dully. The walls looked to be the same dark green metal the Ice Warriors built there armor from, though did not include the crocodile skin pattern. Numerous triangle shaped access panels lined the walls in regular intervals, but the meddling of human hands was evident. Most were torn open, exposing colored wires or switches that's purposes could not be properly known. Some were even further damaged, with peices of said wires sprinkled across the floor, mingled with discarded fuses. These piles of refuse were few and far between however, as most had slid down the hall and lay at the "bottem", piled against the door in a collage of useless debris. With extensive damage such as this, if it was throughout the ship just as completely, the Ice Warriors were perhaps fighting an uphill battle. They would be lucky if this ship would ever truly function again. It may be able to fly, but beyond that, nothing else.

Carefully, he and Sarah Jane descended, tracing their hands on the walls for stability. The Doctor couldn't help but look back up the incline and sigh. It was going to be a real bugger to walk back up. Down was always so much easyer.

Soon they found themselves at a metal door, shut tightly with a key pad beside it. Only half of the alien symbols upon it were lit. Beside the keypad was a jumbled mass of wires sticking from the wall. He could tell already many of them had been spliced to others in a successful attempt to jury-rig the pad. The Ice Warriors did not need the whole thing to work, just the buttons that were the door code.

The Doctor did not need it all working either. Thus was the subtle beauty of the sonic screwdriver. He pointed his tool at the pad, and depressed the button. After a few seconds of warbling, the pad beeped.

Nothing happened. Of course not, nothing was ever that easy. He was going to have to get his hands dirty because of their temporary fix. With a frustrated sigh, he delved his hands into the wire mess. It was a problem solved by splicing the right wires together with the sonic. He just hope his numb fingers were still dexterous enough, an the chill hadn't sapped that away.

He started by cutting a yellow wire and melding it to a blue one. He dug for a red one and spliced that to its other half that was hanging from the wall. He ducked down and brightened the sonic screwdrivers light. No circuit board; that could make is job harder than he wanted. He spliced another pair of red wires together. This was a haphazard approach but there was no other way. In a ship this damaged, it was a guessing game really.

He spent another few minutes, cutting and splicing to no avail. He did not understand why people couldn't just leave things alone. If you have an automatic door, don't tear out the electronics. How hard was that?

Finally however, success. As he cut an orange wire and reconnected one end to a green wire and the green directly into the box. He recoiled as a bunch yellow sparks shot out at him, and the pad uttered an off key beep. The door let loose a strained grone and slowly stutter-slid half way open. Close enough.

He turned sideways and sucked in his stomach, squishing through uncomfortably. Sarah Jane followed, doing just the same. The pair found themselves in another hall, this one in the same derelict shape of the last. In either direction it ended in a turn to the north. The Doctor led the way, taking the path to the right. He had a gut feeling about it, and he always trusted that. Every time he didn't things went badly.

The hall wound around to another set of automatic doors, these open and in working condition. The hall beyond was almost completely dark however, with only a few ceiling lights dimly shining. Even these flickered on and off. His keen ears picked up a nearly inaudible buzzing that started and stopped in time with the lights.

"They're siphoning the power from this part of the ship," he whispered absentmindedly. It was certainly to power the Ionizer. Normally the ship would be able to do it on it's own, without any electrical transfer, but as Vorsaag had predicted to Sarah, the Ice Warriors needed to cannibalise parts of the vessel to get that peice of machinery running. They needed to hurry.

Still, the pair of time travelers moved carefully down the next hall, beneath the ever flickering lights. At the end of this hall was another door with a key pad, but this one was still open. The Doctor and his companion stopped before they reached it however, as the noise coming from it was indicative of what was beyond.

The first sounds were heavy pounding, like someone banging on something with a hammer. High pitched sawing came next, the loud grinding of metal on metal. Then that same buzzing he heard down the hall, only louder, and mixed with a mysterious whirr, not unlike that of a small helicopter. Once that stopped, the pair could hear the hissing, guttural voices yelling to one and other. They were undoubtedly in the right place.

"Listen," The Doctor whispered, "the escaped Ice Warriors are beyond that door. If we cannot get them to hault their efforts to fix the Ionizer, we're going to have a fight on our hands."

"I figured that, do you have a plan?" his companion asked. "Not...really," was his awkward reply.

"Winging it... wonderful," she muttered. He only shrugged. What else could they really do?

Slowly the moved down the hall, and to the door. The Doctor backed up to the wall on one side of the door, and Sarah Jane backed into the other. He took a deep breath and peaked his head around, so he could see into the room.

The room within was gigantic, and almost perfectly round. The first thing he saw in the room were a mass of consoles, covered in switches and buttons of all shapes and sizes. They created an ovel in the center of the room, with enough walking space for more than one Ice Warrior to access everything they would need to. Some were lit up with blue and green lights, while others were dead or flickering. Those with no backlights were torn opened from beneath, with their wiring sticking out in the same rats nest bundles as the panels they had seen earlier. Along many of the walls were computer screens that showed various readings from around the ship. Some still worked, showing lack of proper fuel or violent fluctuations in electrical currents throughout the vessel. One constantly showed a "crash imminent" message on a loop, as though it was reliving the moment of impact over and over. Others were broken, either by the crash or uncaring human hands clumsily fumbling about with technology they would never understand.

The back ofof the room was dominated by a monolithic device that could only be one thing. It was shaped like a massive artillery gun, and reached all the way up through a hatch in the ceiling, into other sections of the ship. It was anchored to a gigantic reactor like object made entirely of glass. The Doctor could see the reactor was divided into two sections, one side full of a clear, viscous fluid, while the other had a dark blue sludge inside. Truthfully, he could only see half of the reactor, because much of it sank beneath the floor into a huge open pit. A ramp, leading to a thin walkway that encircled it, was the only way to access the machine. It was hooked to one simple console, which surprised The Doctor considerably. He would have expected the control set up to be more complex to a device like an Ionizer

All around the room, Ice Warriors worked. Their big, green forms could be seen standing or kneeling around many of the consoles. Some had tools in their big hands, while others taped on buttons and switches. Many held onto the station they were working on for stability, as the ship was far too angled for any sense of footing, even for the cyborg warriors. There were around fifteen of them, as he had expected, and they were all working at a frenetic pace. Amid them stood one particular Saurian, his hands clutched behind his back, and his reptilian voice loudly barking orders. That had to be War Lord Korlark, the warrior Vorsaag had told him about.

He caught Sarah Jane look at him and tip her head, putting up her hands in question. She wanted to know what they were doing. He knew how crazy his ultimate decision was going to sound if he actually told her, so he just motioned for her to follow.

They were going to walk right in and announce that Skaldak was still alive. Given the circumstances, they did not have much of a choice. In fact, it may be the only way for them to avert bloodshed of any sort. It was risky, some would call it suicidal, but when did The Doctor not take risks? It wasn't any crazyer than anything else he had done recently. With the sonic screwdriver gripped tightly his now sweating hand, he straightened his posture, and walked into the room. Sarah Jane came in right behind him. He would face the Ice Warriors with a show of bravery. They understood that more than anything, but more importantly, they respected it. He was careful to keep his balance on the tilted floor. He couldn't afford to fall in front of the enemy he wished to impress after all. What a disaster that would be.

As he and his companion entered, one by one the Ice Warriors took notice, haulting their work. Murmers of "humans" and "intruders" floated throughout the crowd of reptiles, who looked shocked to be seeing a pair of Earthlings standing in their ship. The Ice Warrior believed to be War Lord Korlark staired right at them. Though the red lenses of his helm made his face mostly unreadable, his hands were closed into fists, and The Doctor saw the short gun barrel pop out of his armor's wrist compartment. He was ready for a fight.

"Crew of the Aries Dawn," The Doctor shouted in a commanding voice, "I am the Time Lord known as The Doctor, hailing from the planet Galifrey, defender of Earth. This is my companion, Sarah Jane Smith, of Earth, vanquisher of the Trickster. We come in peace to speak with the commanding officer." As he finished, he glanced around the room to the other Warriors. He had introduced them as the Ice Warriors introduce themselves; name and rank, planet of origin, and accolades, all of the things Ice Warriors cared about. He hoped that way they would not be shot immediately, as The Doctor's reputation spoke for itself, and Sarah Jane's defeat of the intergalactic menace that was The Trickster was legend within the alien community.

One Ice Warrior, The Doctor's main suspect, tipped up his head, and put his fist to his chest in salute.

"I am War Lord Korlark," began his raspy tone, "of the Kuolemin Caste, son of Grand Marshal Turlar The Indestructible, and conqueror of Dero-Set Minor. Why has The Doctor and his subordinate come seeking my audience?" Although difficult for one to really tell, it sounded to him like an sincere question.

"We carry news of Grand Marshal Skaldak," replied the Time Lord.

"Skaldak is dead!" shouted one Ice Warrior to Korlark's left. Korlark's hand shot out in silence, with him shooting the reptile a glare.

"Skaldak is not dead, he broke out of Unit prison just before you, and he is on his way now," The Doctor countered.

"How do I know you are not lying? How do I know this is not a plan to hault our freezing of Earth? Nothing short of the miraculous appearance of the Grand Marshal will stop The Final Solution, Doctor. While I know Skaldak has risen from the dead in the past, I doubt he can do it again," he walked forward a bit, moving his armored hands behind his back.

"I have heard many things about you, Doctor. No matter how badly outnumbered, how outgunned, or how much the odds are stacked against you, you always come out with your foot on the neck of your enemies. Is that your plan here today, Time Lord? To plant your foot apon my neck and doom my people to extinction because of Unit's foolishness?" The Doctor smirked.

"I have no intention of 'planting my foot' on the neck of anyone today. I seek a peaceful resolution, in which your people return to the stars, and Earth's climate remains the same. However, as I am sure you know, so often, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." The Ice Warrior cocked his head at the thinly valed threat. Some of the other warriors shifted, eyeing him uneasily. Even Sarah tensed visibly.

"Had Unit not taken our main fuel supply, we would take off to the stars, but the humans, as they always do, have brought this down on themselves," replyed the reptile bitterly.

"That's what we're trying to tell you, Skaldak has found and recovered your coldfire generator," Sarah Jane suddenly butted in,"he has also found the Weather Globe, but he could not recover the Cliff Seeder."

"Coldfire Generator..." War Lord Korlark trailed off.

"We would not know about that had we not met Skaldak in the flesh," The Doctor continued, "or the reminder of your stolen items. They are missing, are they not?" Korlark took a small step forward.

"Indeed they are. However, you could have just as easily found these things out from Unit itself? In fact, how am I to know that this is not a trick by Unit, to put us off guard so they can sweep in and kill us all. And they will have to kill us. We will not go back to prison."

"Listen to me, this is not a trick by Unit. I am not your enemy in this, but I cannot let you fire the Ionizer into the Earths atmosphere. What Unit has done to you was abominable, but the rest of the Humans do not deserve to be killed because of it!" said The Doctor.

"So my people do? Mars is dying, Doctor. If we cannot find a new home, our species will die out. Millions of us have entered cryo-stasis until a new world can be found. This Ionizer is our only hope, their only hope. Their sleep will be permanent, should we never find one," Korlark replied, anger starting to creep into his voice.

"No, of course they don't! All I am saying is this doesn't need to go this way. No one has to die. Grand Marshal Skaldak is coming, I know that for a fact, and he has the generator you need to fuel your ship," the War Lord shook his scaly head.

"I cannot hault the Ionizer for the false promise of the Humans and their ally. It is ready to be fired, and I will do so. My whole planet depends on it." The Ice Warrior officer had an almost mournful sound to his voice. This was not something Korlark wanted to do any more than The Doctor wanted him too. The solution had all but hit The Doctor right in the face.

"I am not asking you to! All I ask is you delay it, because once Skaldak arrives, you do not need to do this!" His words hung in the air for a few seconds. Korlark just stared at him, his reptilian mouth twitching ever so slightly.

"I am not an unreasonable being, Doctor. I will agree to your terms. We will delay the firing of the Atomic Ionizer for half an Earth hour. Upon that time, if Skaldak has not returned, The Final Solution will commence," The Doctor nodded in reply. It did not alleviate his stress however. He hoped a half an hour would be enough time. He was about to vocalize his acceptance of the terms, when a different voice interrupted him, a familiar, female voice from behind him.

"Everybody put your hands up and your weapons down!" The Doctor and Sarah spun around.

Kate Stewert stood behind them, pointing her hand gun from the the doorway. Behind her was a whole Unit strike team, armored and ready for a fight.

So much for diplomacy.


	12. Chapter 12: Battle for The Dawn

_(Author's Note: I would like to thank my beta GDL for her advice on this chapter, she was very helpful. Also I did a ridiculous amout of research of reptiles prior to this chapter, and I think it paid off. One love everyone. Read and Review) _

Kate Stewart pointed her handgun directly at The Doctor's head. Her eyes were fierce, and her jaw was set. He could see the light, burn mark on the side of her neck where Sarah Jane had tasered her only a few hours ago. Behind her was an equally malicious looking task force of about thirty men. All of them were wearing heavy armor, including bullet proof vests and helmets with face shields. They carried heavy looking guns, some of which glowed with neon tubing, while others were equiped with thick box clips or holographic sights. Unit was pulling out all of the stops this time. They had brought weapons from the Experimental Division.

"Kate, don't do this," he said, "you are making a huge mistake." Had she any idea what she was interrupting? He had managed to negotiate with an Ice Warrior; a nigh impossible task. She was throwing it down the drain, coming in here like this. He had gotten them to hold off.

"Yes, I have, the mistake of trusting a Time Lord to guard a planet that isn't his own," she growled, "especially one that could not even do that." He narrowed his intense gaze at her. How dare she toss Gallifrey at him...

"I have never stopped gaurding your world, even now, while you seem so willing to cause its destruction!" he shouted.

"I did everything I had to to keep this planet safe from every invading force that tries to rip it apart. All while you stand here trying to subvert it. You are siding with the enemy, Doctor, and if I have to kill you to stop what they are doing, I will." He shook his head in disbelief. He was the one person in the universe on Earth's side. Had she forgotten all those times he was the only one to come to her world's aid? All the times he put himself and his friends in danger for a species he was not even a part of?

"Siding with the enemy? Are you joking?" he snorted derisively, "I'm trying to prevent this unnecessary bloodshed that you brought on yourselves! Had your organization not shot this damned ship down in the first place, none of this would be happening! Had you not let your scientists rob them blind, they would have left peacefully! Had you not imprisoned them..."

"What would you have us do?" she interrupted, "not shoot down the alien ship because they might be nice? So that when they inevitably try and kill the human race we can look back and our only answer will be too little too late?" she shook her blond head, "unbelievable."

"What? That he doesn't just gun down everything that is different because it looks dangerous?" Sarah Jane vehemently sneered.

"This coming from the woman who attacks the person trying to do what's best for her and her children," Kate spat back.

"If your underground prison is what's best for my children, then I'll take whatever The Doctor is any day."

"Enough!" Korlark suddenly roared. The Doctor spun on his heel, turning his back to Kate's gun. If she shot him than she did, what could he do? "This transgression is the final straw."

"Korlark, don't do this," The Doctor tried to appeal, holding up his hand. Korlark continued to talk.

"I will not allow my people to go extinct because of Unit's ignorance." Kate pushed her way past The Doctor roughly, now aiming her gun at the Ice Warrior.

"You are under arrest by the Unified Intelligence Task Force. Stand down now or you will be shot," she commanded. Korlark continued to ignore her.

"Doctor, I am sorry that it has come to this, but I will do what I must to insure the survival of my people," he turned his back to them, instead addressing his troops, "Start up the Ionizer, and kill any who try and stop us, The Doctor included!"

Immediately, The Doctor dove for cover, sliding on the inclined floor, and hitting hard against one of the metal consoles. He pushed himself up snug to it. Sarah Jane hit it soon after, curled in a ball, before sitting bolt up next to him.

"I'm to old for this," he heard her groan.

The room filled with gunfire as the Unit team flooded in, sliding and diving for cover just as the pair of time travelers did. Kate had fired the first shots, both hitting Korlark in the back. It had not even phased the Martian, as he turned and aimed his wrist guns at her and let forth a stream of red energy.

Kate was fast and well trained, ducking and running, a trail of rounds following her to cover. Red and green bullets tore throughout the room, walls and whatever Unit soldiers happened to take cover behind. The Humans returned fire.

Unlike the first Unit troops the Ice Warriors met, these weapons were not to be taken for granted. Some fired standard bullets, but they were fitted with exploding tips, causing small fires to erupt every time an Ice Warrior was hit. Others were early laser technology, as The Doctor could hear a distinctive, high pitched whistle as they charged a shot, before flinging forth a pure bolt of white-blue energy. He saw one Ice Warrior hit by the beam stumble backwards, losing his footing on the steep floor and fall with a thud. He was undoubtedly alive but hurt. A second took his place, shooting a red ball at the attacker, the attack reducing him to a jittering mess as electricity took him.

Most of the Ice Warriors did not even take cover. They stood straight and tall, pointing their weapons almost defiantly. One however, rushed through the crowd and climed up the back ramp incircling the Ionizer. A Unit member took a pot shot at him, using a shotgun that fired a weird sort of electrical shells, but the Ice Warrior was unphased. In fact, had The Doctor not seen strands of static electricity arc across it's green chest, he would not have thought him hit at all.

The Warrior stopped momentarily, firing a pair of lime colored blobs at his assailant, before continuing his mad dash. It was only once he reached the Ionizer's control console that he haulted, and pressed a button with his beefy finger. The room shook as though struck by an earthquake, and the Ionizer's main barrel started to move, rising up through the hatch in the ceiling even further. The divider within the machine's clear tank started to spin slowly, allowing the chemicals to mix together, churning them as it rotated.

"Doctor, what do we do?" Sarah Jane yelled over the din. Luckily, Unit was too busy with the Saurians to target the pair, and they had not actively tried to stop the Ice Warriors yet, so they had not defined them as enemys.

The Doctor didn't take his eyes off the superweapon as he answered his companion.

"When the Chemical Sink is done mixing, the Ionizer will fire into the Earth's atmosphere, and bring about another Ice Age. It will blow right through the bunker's ceiling, and I don't foresee Unit being able to stop it. That means it's up to us."

"What do we need to do?" she had that driven look in her dark eyes, the same one he had seen so many time before when they were both younger.

"There should be an Emergency Shut Off button in case of malfunction. We can use that to shut it down, if they haven't disabled it." He sincerely hoped they hadn't. They did not want to freeze Earth in the first place, so it would stand to reason they would leave the shut off switch alone, in case they found an alternative. If they hadn't...

Sarah Jane glanced around the their cover, up at the walkway. Between them and the Ionizer where an entire crew of angry Ice Warriors, prepared to kill them, and too many of Unit's finest for their liking. The odds were not in their favor.

"Can you get to the Ionizer controls?" he asked her with a raised brow. A plan was already formulating in his head of what to do. He glanced at the ovel control center. It all depended on how much work the Ice Warriors had actually gotten done, verses the damage the humans did. If he could get the engines to work, just for a second or two...

"You mean in one peice? I doubt it," she replied candidly, "not unless you have a plan. You do, don't you?"

"Of course." She grimaced

"A good one?"

"Probably not," he confessed. His plans were never really good. Look at how this one turned out. "But have I ever let you down?" Immediately he wished he had not asked that, considering their spat not even an hour ago. She looked af him and screwed up her face.

"No..." she admitted begrudgingly, "but you sure do make a foul mess half the time."

"Not half the time" he denied.

"As long as I've known you..." she trailed off.

"Alright," he said waving his hands dismissively, "I'll cause a distraction, and you start toward the Ionizer. Stay low and as out of sight as you can, just like you did in San Martino, with those cultists."

"I got captured and almost sacrificed in San Martino," she said dryly.

"Okay, bad example, but you know what I mean. Ready?" She nodded her head, shutting her eyes and drawing in a deep breath, "let's go!"

The Doctor broke cover, out into the chaotic fray. Bright beams of energy blew passed them, one flashing into the chest of a Unit officer. A separate man returned fire, his fire laden rounds knocking the attacker backword. With a crash of smashed electronics, the Ice Warrior hit his head hard onto one of the computers, knocking him out in a sprey of blue sparks.

The Doctor and Sarah kept their heads low, avoiding the furious gun-fighting by moving fast. The Ice Warriors being down hill gave them some advantage, making them harder to hit, and their enemies being concentrated on each other at the moment kept them safe.

The pair reached the the ovel shaped command center relatively unnoticed through the chaos. The bedlam had worked toward their advantage this time, but they could not rely on that every time.

"Start making your way toward the ramp over there. My distraction should buy you some time to reach the Ionizer, but make the best of it when it happens," The Doctor said with a nod, "and... be carefull."

"You too," she replied, brushing her hand across his sholder.

With that gesture, she was off, ducking through the oncoming fire, sliding behind an overturned moniter, just as a stream of red balls singed the floor where she had just been. Another volly scorched the front of the monitor, causing the woman to cover her head with her hands and make herself as small as possible. Once the attack was over, she shot a glance over at The Doctor, followed by a thumbs up.

It was up to him now. He stood, and vaulted over the console he was crouched behind, hitting the floor on the other side harder than he had expected. He stumbled on the downward slope, his momentum carrying him stomach first into the monitor directly across from him.

Pain shot through his abdomen and he wheezed as the air was knocked out of his lungs. He looked up from the switchboard in front of him just in time to see a big, green, armord Martian pointing his wrist gun right at him. The Time Lord dropped down to the floor like a rag doll. His dodge came at just the right moment, as a pair of green projectiles sailed overhead, exploding harmlessly against the back wall. He popped back up quickly, aiming his screwdriver at the alien, and pressed the button. He was unable to hear the warbling sound over the surrounding weapon fire, but he was sure it had worked how it was supposed to.

The Martian adjusted his aim slightly, and steadied his arm. After nothing happened for a few seconds, he examined his arm confusedly, then shot The Doctor an angry grimace.

It stomped forward instead, its thick hands clenched into fists. In a way, The Doctor preferred enemies with guns; he could disarm a gun from a distance. He couldn't disarm fists. Not with the screwdriver anyway.

With a growl like an angry bear, it broke into a quick jog, leaping the control centers with agility a creature his size should not possess. Closing the gap, it came at the Time Lord swinging.

The Doctor ducked a vicious hook, and back stepped the heavy uppercut that followed it. Any one of the blows thrown by this foe could knock him unconscious or break a bone, if he was lucky. In a face to face fight, he was utterly out matched. He could not damage an unarmored Ice Warrior in a physical brawl in the slightest. However, Ice Warriors were slow and relied on power over speed. Anyone could see their attacks coming a mile away, it was just a matter of avoiding being hit.

And The Doctor was very good at avoiding attack. The reptile followed through with a straight right, and The Doctor dodged aside, deftly ducking passed him in the same movement. He kicked his foot into the small of the off-balence alien's back with all the strength he could muster. The attack sent it stumbling forward into one of the control interfaces, accompanied by a rage filled yell. He had a few seconds before it turned around and he made the most of it. He looked around in the room, finding exactly what he was looking for: a pair of thick cords running across the floor into one of the console stations near by. Normally, cords of this size would be hidden below the floor, but with the disheveled state of the ship, he knew they would be exposed. The Ice Warriors were trying to get the power back on after all, it was obvious. He started backing toward that control aira.

The Ice Warrior spun around, flinging his elbow around as he did, pathetically out of range. Once this attack hit only air, he charged the time travler down. The Doctor back stepped quickly, and as he felt his back against the machine, he smiled. Perfect.

The Ice Warrior ended his charge in a murderous front kick. The Doctor lept side ways out of its path and the creature's thick foot smashed a thick hole into the metal and glass, sending a shower of sparks in its wake. The Doctor landed hard on his side, next to the, now unhooked, cord.

Just what he had planned... almost. What he had wanted to do was drop down and use the sonic screwdriver to cut through the wires to unhook it, but beneath the foot of an Ice Warrior, it was forcibly ripped free. A mass of torn wires hung from it, still live and sparking. It lulled outwards, and was right near The Doctor's feet. A few more inches and he would have a few thousand volts of electricity coursing through his body. It would not be the first time that happened but he did not feel like repeating it any time soon; that business atop the Empire State building was more than enough for him.

It was in perfect position however, right in his assailant's way. All he had to do was step on it. The Doctor skittered backwards and lept to a standing position, backing up further. Violently ripping his foot from the console, The Ice Warrior came back at him, his other humongous foot nearing the fallen

He stepped right over it. The Doctor inwardly cursed himself. No one was stupid enough to step on an obviously live wire, certainly not a reptilian supersoldier. He continued backing up, glancing all around the room. He had to formulate a new plan, and fast.

It was already too late, as the Ice Warrior bore down on him. It's giant fist came at his head and he ducked under it, throwing a punch of his own, aimed at it's exposed mouth. His attack hit, followed by a shot of pain through his knuckles and wrist. Most landed on the edge of the helmet, but even what hit his scails did no damage. He immediately wished he had not thrown that punch, as a heavy body shot followed, with The Doctor unable to dodge it properly. He still tried, slipping left, but the heavy hand buryed itself into his left side.

It felt like someone had clubbed him in the ribs with a cricket bat. Pain ripped through his abdomen and he doubled over, stumbling backwards. His ribs throbbed and his stomach flipped. He saw it cock his fist back in what was to be a knock out punch... or maybe a killing blow. He couldn't get out of the way of it fast enough, and he knew it. This might be it. He would fail again, like he had so many times before, and people would suffer for it. He faced it with his intense eyes open wide. He would not shy away.

Just then, out of the dark, a red flash appeared, streaking into the back of his attacker, interrupting his punch. He stumbled forward with a pained grunt, nearly falling onto the Time Lord. Another hit soon after, but the Ice Warrior regained his footing, and whipped around angrily, ready to face a more dangerous attacker.

Another laser blast hit him, this time flush in the head. The reptile took it well for a few seconds, teetering on its toes before floping onto its stomach with a heavy thud. It was still breathing, but was unconscious from the blow.

Across the way, still crouched behind the same control space, was Sarah Jane, his savior. Laying next to her was one of Unit's officers, obviously hit by an Ice Warrior wrist gun. Sarah Jane held his salvaged, experimental gun, the barrel still steaming. She sent The Doctor a knowing nod, with a worried frown on her face. He knew how much she had grown to hate fire arms of any kind over the last two decades, and what it took for her to break her moral code on such things. He was beyond grateful, far more than words could expresse. He would repay her in full.

Now was his chance to work his brand of magic as only he could. Ignoring the pain crushing his side and rising up his arm, he rushed around the ovel control center, reaching the middle-most console. He pointed the sonic screwdriver at it, bringing up the holographic interface, then used it to bypass the security codes.

This made a 3D image of the engines pop up on screen, with a list of options. Power levels were alarmingly low but there was enough being pumped into the engines for the ship to move. It wouldn't be flying anywhere any time soon, but he did not need it to.

He used the sonic screwdriver to quickly scroll through the preflight menus, tricking the ship's computer into thinking it was prepared for flight. Normally all the failsafe procedures would never let it fly, but his tool hacked right through those. With a press of a button, he started the engines, and held on for dear life.

The whole ship shuddered and shook as it tore itself from the ground, the room echoing with the sickly reving of the half powered engines. The floor shifted suddenly, becoming level, flinging both Unit troopers and Ice Warriors on the floor with frantic yells. Everything vibrated and shook violently as it started to move, shearing through the stone bunker's Eastern wall. The floor's angle shifted again as it hurteled downward, out of control with no one at the controls. The Doctor lost his grip on the console, sliding across the floor and painfully crashing into the opposite monitor.

A deafining roar filled the room and the ceiling showerd down sparks like rain when the ship collided with the ground the first time, then again, skipping across the field like a stone across water. After another pair of collisions, it rumbled to a flat hault, everything silent and still.

The Doctor was dizzy, partially from the terrible crash, partially from the pain in his ribs. The floor was no longer at a steep angle, and every single living being in the room was sprawled on the floor in some uncomfortable fashion. New damage was evident, ceiling and wall panels ripped away, revealing the craft's innards.

He stood up, wobbling on his feet for a few seconds, and looked to the Ionizer, hoping the impact had broken the massive weapon.

It hadn't. The Chemical Sink was still spinning, even though the glass was now fractured with cracks. It did not surprise him, Atomic Ionizers were built to withstand the worst crashes, and even full scale battles. The rest of the ship could crumble around it, but the Ionizer would survive. A grim sensation slowly spread through him. The liquid was starting to change color now, from dark blue to more of a aqua shade. It was almost done mixing, which meant it was going to fire soon.

The Doctor next looked to Sarah Jane. She was as resilient as ever, already peeling herself awkwardly off the floor, looking around confusedly and shoving her messy brown hair out of her face. She glanced over in his direction, shooting him a look between exhaustion and bemusement. She then looked over at the Ionizer and back, nodding.

She obviously understood what needed to be done, and intended to do it. She stuttered up to her feet, grabbing onto the wall for support, and started toward the Ionizer ramp, quickly gaining her footing and starting to jog. She no longer had her stolen gun, so she could move all the faster, and speed would be her biggest advantage right now.

As she did, one of the downed Ice Warriors got to his feet, aiming his gun at her, tracking her run. The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at him, about to disarm him. Before he even had the chance to press the button, a pair of fiery bullets collided into the reptiles chestplate in two small explosions, knocking it down. The Doctor looked back to Sarah's savior.

It was Kate Stewart that aimed her gun, her blonde hair slick with sweat and a dark bruse forming across her right eye. He made no motion to her at all; this fight was not over, and who knew what side she would be on by the end. For all he knew, there was another bullet meant for him.

Sarah's mad dash continued, with a pair of orange balls trailing her from across the room, scorching holes in the wall behind her. Slowly, the fire fight throughout the room started to recommence as Unit officers and Ice Warriors pulled themselves up off the floor, already exchanging fire back and forth. One Ice Warrior, unconcerned with the combat around him, beat Sarah Jane to the ramp, climbing to it's apex, to stand guard in front of the Ionizer controls. They had no intention of letting the humans disrupt their plan. The Doctor took note of that Ice Warrior's wrist gun, which was partially melted.

Sarah jogged up the ramp, coming face to face with her new foe. He was worried for her to say the least. She was not a fighter. Many years ago, The Doctor had taught her some martial arts when they travelled together, and he was sure she had learned some along the path her life had taken her on, but nothing that could fend off an Ice Warrior. He had to do something, before the Ice Warrior did something to her.

Ever clever and resourceful, a plan quickly sprung to mind. He looked up at the dim and flickering ceiling lights, and then to a triangular wall panel next to the hatch he and Sarah had entered the room through. All he had to do was get to it.

He sucked in a painfull deep breath, and ran for it, vaulting back over the main consoles and running for the entry door. He felt the heat of a lasor round blaze past his shoulder, burning the wall in front of him. He instinctively ducked as another shot passed his head, followed by a second.

He skided to a stop in front of the panel he was looking for, and lit his screwdriver. He pushed the lit up head aginst the edge and followed it all around, springing it free and dropping it to the ground with a clang.

Behind him, Sarah and the Ice Warrior circled one and other carefully. The lizard flexed his sausage fingers as he did, before charging at her like an angry bull, arms out and head down. She side stepped easily out of the way, his charge missing entirly. It was a clever ruse however. The soldier stopped just as he passed by her, suddenly whipping around into a thick roundhouse punch meant to take off Sarah's head. Had the woman not still been light on her feet, it would have seceded.

Despite her age, she managed to back out of range just in time, the big hand sailing just passed her face. She stumbled however, falling down onto her backside. She rapidly skittered backwards as the warrior's beefy foot smashed down just where she had been. She kicked out her foot in a desperate attempt to trip him, but her foot only hit a solid wall of armor. The Ice Warrior reached down, and grabbed her ankle yanking her up off the floor upside down.

The Doctor heard her blood curdling scream and started to hurry. The access panel controlled the room's interior lights via a mass of switches. Not quite what he was looking for, as he wanted the box that controlled all of the room's electronics but, but he was nothing if not adaptable. He could still accomplish his plan. With a sweep of his hand, he switched them all off.

The room was drowed in total darkness, only lit by the lasers and gunfire. In this sudden darkness, Sarah Jane was dropped to the cold, metal floor. She immediately sprung to her feet, grasping toward the Ionizer controls in the black. The Ice Warrior, able to see almost perfectly because of his cybernetics, grabbed her by the arm, and tossed her roughly back on the floor.

By the lime light of his screwdriver, he rapidly examined the contents of the box. Ice Warrior's kept the lights low, because they were reptiles. Their eyes could not process extreme brightness, which was why they wore red tinted goggles. This allowed them to venture into bright environments without worry. Even those were not complete protection, not to sudden changes. He planned to use that to his advantage.

In the bottom left corner of the box he found a three-sectioned knob, indicating brightness levels. Bingo. He twisted it all the way to the right, as far as it would go, then put his sonic screwdriver up to the task. Even on their normal maximum setting, the lights would not be bright enough, but his tool could change that, but only temporarily. It would have to do. Once his work was finished, he flipped the switch.

The lights sprung on blindingly, at their full brightness. The sudden shift from near total darkness to white hot light even disoriented The Doctor, who squinted his eyes and held up has palm to block the rays. It was almost like staring into an LED light, and it felt like his retinas were going to fall out.

The Ice Warriors were even worse off. A collection of bestial screams filled the room as they covered their eyes in pain. Some crashed to the floor, writhing in pain, while others feel painfully into monitors and control consoles. Some of the humans tried to fire but even their aim was off as they squinted into the sudden exposer.

Sarah Jane's attacker immediately stumbled away from her, flailing wildly. She stood shakily in the commotion, obviously blinded herself, wrenching her body forward, reaching the Ionizer's controls. She fell into them, then looked down. The Doctor saw her raise one hand and slam it down.

The sound of heavy machinery whirred to a hault, powering down. The Chemical Sink made a final few pathetic rotations before stopping, the sludge in the bottem glowing bright blue flecked with sparkling white. They stopped it just in time. Only a few more rotations and Earth as they knew it would have been gone.

Already, the lights were begining to dim down to there normal shade, the cool blue returning to coler the ship. He had known it would be temporary, but misjudged just _how_ temporary. The Ice Warriors were still half blind, but the fallen were beginning to get up, pointing their wrist guns forward as they always did, there aim as unsteady as their feet. Others had already started firing at what remained of Unit's dwindling forces, who's defences were beginning to fail.

The Doctor had underestimated the Martians once again. He had hoped blinding them would force them to surrender, or shutting down the Ionizer would break their resolve, but these warriors were prepared to die for what they believed in. He could even understand it. Everything had been torn away from them. They had nothing to loose and everything to gain. If they died they did so with honor in the eyes of their people. He had been foolish to hope they would just give up, and deep down he knew they wouldn't. Too prideful... too desperate. Surveying the field of battle, of the thirty men Kate had brought with her, around fifteen still fought. All others were on the ground, possibly unconscious but almost certainly dead. Of the Ice Warriors, ten still stood. He shook his head. This was not going to end until one side or the other were dead.

His blue eyes darted around the room, his teeth gritted together in frustration. There had to be something he could do, he just wasn't seeing it. Something would make them stop. Something...

His thoughts were interrupted however, as he caught a big, green, armored shape out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head, fear striking into his stomach as his gaze filled with a Martian giant, it's angry red goggles looking down at him.

Before he had a chance to move, its hand came at his throat, pinning him against the wall. He felt its fingers clench tight around his windpipe, brutally cutting it off. It lifted him off the ground with a growl, sliding him up the wall slowly. Painful lightning shot down his neck and back, and he scrabbled at it's thick wrist frantically, dropping the screwdriver on the floor. He kicked his feet into it's armored stomach, to no avail. Nothing would make it let go, short of a miracle. The warrior squeezed harder.

He felt himself getting dizzy, and the edges of his vision started to black. Over the Ice Warrior's broad shoulders, he could see the fighting commencing all over again, with Humans and Ice Warriors trading fire back and forth in a deadly exchange. Sarah Jane had run down the ramp and was attempting to help him, but her efforts were in vain. She was immediately pinned down by a pair of Saurians peppering her cover with orange energy.

There had to be a way out of this, something he could do. Dangling here, like this, could not be the end, not for him, and not for Sarah. He couldn't let them kill Sarah. He tried to pry the fingers from his throte with both hands, but the Ice Warrior just squeezed harder. No ammount of prying in the world would make it let go. He half hopefully looked at Kate, who had the capacity to save him.

She was engaged in her own fight however, with War Lord Korlark himself. Korlark held a serrated blade of green metal in his hands, swinging at Unit's Chief Science officer with abandon. He recognized that blade, the blade gifted to a War Lord upon reaching said rank. They carried it with them inside their armor at all times, and it was considered a great honor to die by it's tip. All Kate could defend with was an electrical stun rod; hardly a weapon for a sword fight.

Everything was starting to go dark, his hearts pounding in his head. This was not how he had expected to go out this time, to the Ice Warriors. Perhaps his next body would not be such a resounding failure, he figured.

Just then, before darkness took everything, a figure came through the door, big, tall and broad shouldered. His imposing armor betrayed what he was, an Ice Warrior. It was carrying a big, round sack on its back and something clutched in itsits hand. This could only be one Ice Warrior.

Skaldak had arrived. The Doctor barely clung to consciousness while he watched the Grand Marshal hold up one hand, gripping a small, round, metal sphere. He pointed his wrist gun at it, standing very tall, and impossibly still.

"Enough!" The Grand Marshal's reptilian voice screamed over the combat. Everything sounded dull, like The Doctor was under water, "this foolish conflict has gone on long enough! Should any of you, Flesh Whelp or Saurian refuse to surrender, I will annihilate you all."

Had The Doctor not been choking to death, he would have smiled. Grand Marshal Skaldak, Vanquisher of the Phobos Heresy, and the greatest Martian hero to ever live, was well enough to force the Ice Warriors to surrender, let alone that he now held their only means of escape and survival at gun point. That coldfire generator, if shot, held enough energy to destroy the whole ship. He applauded the tactic's effectiveness, despite it's brutishness.

Just as the world turned black he saw the Ice Warriors lower their guns in surrender, what passed for awe etched onto their faces. Then, The Doctor felt himself fall, although he could not tell if it was real or a dream, and he had not the time to think about it, before he slipped into the clutches of unconsciousness.


	13. Chapter 13: Home Again

_(Author's Note: This is the final chapter of A Cold Reunion. I appreciate all of you who read and who supported me doing this. For those of you who didn't, I told you I could do this. I would like to thank my lovely beta, GDL, without whom this would not look nearly as good as it does, feline38 for her support and kindness, and Bannerfanner for her unyielding friendship. A lot has gone on in my life during this fic, I can honestly say events in my life during these months changed me forever, and in a lot of ways, this fic was the calm in the storm. Again thankyou all for reading, and this is just the beginning of the adventure my friends, the best is yet to come.)_

The Doctor's head thundered as he opened his eyes. A pretty, cloudless blue sky met him, the same one he remembered seeing when he and Sarah Jane exited the Tardis not too long ago.

The ship! He sat bolt upright, his head immediately swimming. That was not a good idea. And the pounding headache was not helping him feel any better. He glanced around.

He was in a makeshift medical station, obviously set up by Unit. Blankets had been laid along the ground, with the tall grass smashed flat around them. Men lay about, some covered in bandages or with their arms in slings. Others knelt or stood nearby, keeping watch over their fallen comrades.

Across the field, he could see the Ares Dawn in all its glory, sitting perfectly level on a small hill. Leading to it were divots in the ground, giant holes where it had skidded across the field. He glanced behind him, to the top of the hill.

Where there once was a bunker, was now a pile of stone rubble, spilling haphazardly down the hill. Now destroyed when he turned the engines on. He had to give himself a pat on the back however. That was a beautiful landing, made even better by him being blind and out of control. That would have gotten him marks in the Academy. Though, if he was honest, he had gotten very, very lucky. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone.

He thought back to inside the ship. He wasn't surprised he was dizzy, considering he had been choked near to death by a reptilian super soldier. He had only been choked nearly to death, hadn't he?

He quickly ran his hands across his face a hair in panic. He didn't want to regenerate again. Not now. He felt the same wrinkles on his face, same hooked nose. His hair felt the same, as did his lips; he even still felt Scottish, if one could feel as such. He was positive he was still the same man. That was a good thing, he was finally getting used to this body. He would hate to lose it now.

"Oh my God, you're awake!" shouted a familiar voice behind him. He turned to see his old friend, Sarah Jane rushing to him. She wrapped her arms around him gleefully, while he sat and waited for it to be over. He would never understand the need for humans to always be touching each other. He was glad she was alright however. He would never forgive himself if anything ever happened to her. Finally, she let go, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"I was so worried! When you didn't wake up right away, I thought you were going to regenerate!" she said.

For a moment, I thought maybe I had," he replied. Yes, still Scottish.

"How are you? Are you alright? How do you feel?" She asked, concern filling her eyes. He never had to wonder if she cared for him. He could always see it etched across her face.

"A tad dizzy but otherwise I'll be fine," he replied gruffly. There was no reason for her to worry unnecessarily. If he hadn't regenerated yet, he wasn't going to. He didn't like people being fussy. It was always uncomfortable. "What happened after...I passed out?" he asked. It was imperative to get back to the task at hand, find out if there was still an Armageddon to thwart.

"How much do you remember? Do you remember Skaldak arriving?" she asked. He tried to think back, but it was fuzzy. He could recall someone coming in and interrupting the fighting but he could not think of who. He strained to remember.

"Sort of," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He hated not being able to recall things. One would be surprised the importance of things they forgot. One misplaced memory could be the difference between life and death.

"Skaldak forced a surrender by pointing his gun at the coldfire generator. The threatened to kill everyone, even his own people. Unit and the Ice Warriors both laid down their arms." The Doctor nodded.

"That would do it," he returned, "there is enough energy in that small tank to annihilate the whole ship if damaged properly. Why did he do it?" That was the part that surprised him the most. He remembered a grief stricken Skaldak who was willing to destroy the whole world. Although a fine soldier, mercy was not in his nature.

"He said the conflict had gone on long enough, and too much blood had been spilled already on both sides, and we were only succeeding in destroying each other, and it benefitted no one," she explained. Cold, calculating logic... that was more the Ice Warrior way.

When he thought about it, it made sense. Much like Vorsaag, Skaldak's ultimate goal was not a fight with the Human race, nor the destruction of planet Earth. It was to find a new home, one uninhabited that did not need conquering. This fight with Unit was getting in the way of that. Not only that, it was chipping away at the already dwindling race, from a conflict that was of no consequence. Skaldak would see it as a waste of time. And really, who could blame him?

"Unit agreed to this?" he asked. Kate normally did not respond well to threats.

"She didn't really have a choice. Not with Skaldak ready to kill everyone in one shot. And to be fair, he was not asking for anything out of line. All he wanted was for his people to be allowed the time to make repairs to their ship, and leave in peace. Considering the circumstances, a truce was the best option for everyone involved," he saw Sarah Jane smile just at the corner of her mouth.

"So... they have made peace?" he asked, allowing a pin prick of hope to enter his voice.

"Yes...it is shaky, barely strung together peace, but...they're not shooting at one and other so I think we had better take it," she said with an exhausted grin. The Doctor could not help but do the same.

That was the one thing he had always admired about Humanity, despite their capacity for violence and war, he always found they were eventually able to make peace, even with their worst enemies. They could forgive and work toward a better tomorrow, even if there had been violence today. It was a race that was flawed, but they possessed a better ability to find the right within the wrong, something even the Time Lords could not seem to do. Once again, that ability had prevailed over bloodlust and anger. It was in the face of a threat, but Kate could have subverted it, gone behind the Ice Warrior's backs and attacked once Skaldak had let down his guard. They had not done that, not so far. He hoped his pride was not premature, and Kate did not have something up her sleeve.

"I had you brought out here after the negotiations were over and you hadn't woken up. I thought maybe putting you in the sun, out of the cold ship, would help. I told them not to do anything for you. I know with Time Lords they can just make you worse."

He inwardly thanked her for that. When it came to his biology, Humans were well meaning but ignorant. He was once shot in San Francisco in the 1990s, and though mortally wounded, he would have recovered had the local doctors not intervened. The surgery meant to save his life actually forced him to regenerate. He was grateful these Humans were smart enough to keep their hands to themselves. Sarah Jane then reached out her hand, gently touching his shoulder.

"I'm glad you're alright, Doctor," were her only words.

He was about to reply, but their moment was abruptly cut short. An armored, Unit trooper cleared his throat loudly off to the side, standing at attention, in a salute.

"Excuse me, sir. Officer Stewart wishes to speak to you," he said loudly. The Doctor could not help but gawk for a moment or so. Unit had just gone from threatening to kill him, to saluting him in about an hour's time. He rolled his eyes.

"Stop that! For God's sake put your hand down! You look ridiculous!" he shouted. The man's back straightened slightly and he did as he was told, looking petrified. It had to be the Scottish accent. The old Time Lord started to his feet.

"Do you need help? Are you still dizzy?" Sarah Jane asked, springing up before him, reaching out her hands. He bushed them away gently.

"I'm quite alright thank you," he replied. He stood and rolled his shoulders. His neck was still sore but otherwise he was still alright. He adjusted his waistcoat, and fixed the cuffs. Just because he almost died was no reason to look like a mess.

"I almost forgot!" Sarah Jane exclaimed. From the pocket of her jeans, she pulled his sonic screwdriver. "You dropped this. I made sure to find it before I left. We don't need the Ice Warriors getting ahold of it, do we?"

"Certainly not. I don't think I would trust them with it," he grinned, taking it and slipping it into his coat pocket. He doubted they could use it as well as he did anyway. It was the principal of the matter...

Sarah Jane and The Doctor followed behind the Unit soldier, out of the makeshift medical station and into what and towards a large, black, van. He could see the back doors were open, revealing a giant computer within, displaying all sorts of readings and data. He could assume it was all in regards to the Ice Warriors and the crashed ship. This was Unit's Mobile Ground Command Centre.

Standing near the back was a beleaguered looking Kate Stewart. Her blonde hair was a sweaty mess, and her clothing was stained with dirt and oil, and one sleeve of her shirt was torn off. She had an ugly black eye on the left side of her face, but when considering she survived a fight with a crew of reptilian super-commandos, she should feel lucky that was all she escaped with.

She turned to look at him, flashing that puckish grin her family was so famous for. He would have smiled back, but now was not the time for pleasantries. He had to set a few things straight, whether she liked it or not. And she probably wouldn't.

"You've done it again, Doctor. Came in and saved the day in the Twelfth Hour," she approached him with her hand outstretched. He shook his head, shifting his hand in decline.

"Yes I did, just as I always do, and I am insulted you did not think better of me," he replied harshly. She looked back at him, shocked.

"Doctor... I..." she began but he cut her off again.

"You held a gun on me, Kate, threatened to kill me, arrest me, arrest her," he motioned to Sarah Jane, "that was unacceptable enough, but then I found your pet project beneath Unit Headquarters. It's shameful Kate."

"It's... not my project, Doctor. You must have been able to do the math. I was not even involved in Unit activities in the eighties, when the Ice Warriors were shot down. I inherited that prison when I was promoted to Chief Science Officer. That was not my doing," she defended. Through her strong facade he could see she was hurt, but it did not matter to him.

"So this was Lethbridge's doing..." he concluded. She shook her head.

"No, it was kept a secret from even him. It was built in the early seventies after multiple attempted invasions and combat with hostile extraterrestrials. We were hoping to protect ourselves, because even you must admit, Doctor, this planet is constantly in the cross hares." The Doctor nodded in return. It was a nice story that his old friend Lethbridge Stewart did not know of the prison, but he was not sure he believed her. He knew the Brigadier quite well, and he was by no means a stupid man who noticed nothing. He would not push the point however. If she wanted to believe that her father was ignorant, or wanted others to do so, that was her choice.

"Even I did not find out about it until the 'black cube' incident," she said after a time of awkward silence. The Doctor only sighed.

"Regardless of what you knew or did not know, that facility is an abomination, and it needs to be shut down, and the prisoners released." Kate only frowned.

"Doctor, I don't know what you expect of us. We need to protect ourselves from the things that target us," she defended.

"Since when is torture a protection?" Sarah Jane prodded.

"I will give you that, our methods are not the most... humane but sometimes we need to sacrifice the few to protect the many," she replied, "if we can prevent just one invasion by the holding of these prisoners."

"Perhaps that is true, but look at what this has caused Kate!" The Time Lord shouted, a bit louder than he had meant to, motioning to the crashed spacecraft, "the people who died needlessly, the Ice Warriors, innocent of crime, giving up decades for nothing! The destruction that would have been wrote on your planet had I not arrived."

"But you did," she countered.

"It doesn't matter!" he hollered, "It would have been directly because of that prison. And because of you!"

"I was not the one who shot down that ship, this was left of me!" she replied, anger creeping into her voice.

"But you stood by and did nothing, which makes you just as responsible," Sarah Jane responded.

"Precisely. All evil needs to triumph is for good people to do nothing, Kate. Had those Ice Warriors been left alone, none of this would have come to pass. This whole planet could have been frozen because you did not see mercy or reason, and set them free."

"So then what are we to do, Doctor? Not shoot down ships? Not defend ourselves? We cannot afford to not do these things. What are we supposed to do? No one protects us."

"I protect you!" he argued loudly, "I have been and will always guard your planet! I have spent all of my lives protecting Earth, and I have no doubt I will spend the rest of them doing so. This planet has a guardian, and it is me." They stood in silence for a time.

"And... what if one day, one dark day, we are in trouble, and that blue box never appears and in our bleakest hour, The Doctor never comes? What then can we do? Will we look back and regret what we did not do that could have ensured our survival?"

"That day will never come Kate, and that you have so little faith is a slap in the face. I have come here and protected this planet from things you never knew about, things you would never even understand if you saw them. I have insured your survival by guarding your past, and defended your great grandchildren in conflicts that haven't even happened yet, and that you could never imagine in your wildest fantasies. I have seen your planet destroyed by its own sun, and seen your people scattered across the universe like chaff in the wind, only to rise from the ashes to start again. Though all of it I have been there! I have never faltered and I have not failed, and I will never. You can trust in that."

He finished, and Kate only stared at him, mouth open.

"We..." she started after a time, "need to defend ourselves, for the times when you aren't here."

"I am not saying you shouldn't, but you do not need to sell your souls to do it, Kate! How does this make you better than the Dalaks, or the Cybermen, or the Zygons? You're treating other beings like animals, and I cannot allow that, I don't care the circumstances."

Again she was silent, mulling it over in her head. He could almost see it in her eyes when she came to a solution.

"You... are right Doctor. I will see to it that the prison is shut down, and the captives are released." He nodded.

"Good. Excellent. You do realize I will return to check, be sure you are true to your words?" he asked. It was not that he did not trust Kate, however, he knew desperate people did desperate things. He would return in a few years' time and see if she had kept her word. He knew she would, both of his hearts told him so. A Stewart always kept their words.

"One final word," he began, "you owe my companion an apology," he said, pointing a long finger at the Unit officer.

"Are you serious?" she asked, appalled, "she shocked me in the neck!"

"If you hadn't threatened to kill The Doctor I would have done no such thing. Actually you threatened us both, but I can forgive the slight against me," Sarah Jane explained, crossing her arms. She was so feisty. He always liked that about her.

"Fine, I'm sorry to have threatened you both. I could have handled Skaldak's appearance with a bit more grace," Kate begrudgingly said.

"I accept," Sarah replied, "and I'm sorry for..." she motioned to her neck uncomfortably. Kate waved it off.

"Water under the bridge now," was all she said. Neither Kate nor Sarah Jane were women who held grudges against most. They saved them for the important things.

"Now, if you both will excuse me, I have businesse I must attend to with the Ice Warriors. I believe I have a Grand Marshal to thank for saving me neck," The Doctor said.

"You don't want company? Just in case?" Sarah asked. He waved her off.

"No, I think Skaldak and I should speak face to face, alone." He was not sure what gave him that feeling, but he always trusted his gut. It was never wrong.

"Alright, but don't you dare ditch me here, or I swear to God..." Sarah said shaking her head.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he smirked. He had learned his lesson about leaving Sarah Jane behind, and gotten enough earfuls about it to last him a few lifetimes.

He left the two women behind, and made his way toward the funnel shaped space craft. As he did, he could not help but feel a sense of... peace. That had become a rarity for him these days but something about the events of the day had brought it on. It was a far cry from his chaotic head this morning, so filled with worry and chaos he could barely contain it.

As the sun began to set over the field, casting long shadows across the ground, he smiled. Perhaps it was seeing an old friend, one he missed dearly. Perhaps it was simply the thrill of solving another mystery, and saving the planet from destruction one more time. Perhaps it was just something in the air today.

Yet still, once again, his mind wandered to Gallifrey. He still missed his home, and the irony was not lost on him. Two thousand years ago all he wanted to do was leave it, run as far and as fast as he could and never look back. The Time Lords had to drag him home to get him to return. Now all he wanted to do was go home again. Maybe it was true what people say, that one always wants what they cannot have. Or maybe... it was a bit simpler than that. Maybe he just wanted to not be the last Time Lord in the universe. Maybe, even though he did not want to return home, he still wanted to know it was there.

Regardless of why, he would still search for his planet. He owed it to his people, and to himself. It would take time, maybe hundreds or thousands of years. He could spend the reminder of his lives looking, and never finding.

But he would try... and if that was the best he could do.

"Never cruel or cowardly, never give up, never give in," he recited to himself quietly. He took his name for those reasons, and he would absolutely never give up on finding Gallifrey, and never give in and say it was gone.

He approached the entry ramp of the Ice Warrior ship. A part of him wondered if the Ice Warriors would accept his request to speak to Skaldak. They had just tried to kill him after all.

A pair of Ice Warriors stood guard at the top of the ramp, and both looked down to him upon his approach.

"I am here to request an audience with the Grand Marshal Skaldak. I wish to speak with him before your departure," he shouted up to them. The two lizards glanced to one and other, then one disappeared inside the ship.

The Doctor's wait was not a long one. Very soon after, the guard returned, and took his place by the door, followed by the ever intimidating Skaldak.

The Grand Marshal marched down the ramp, his expressionless helm hiding away any chance The Doctor had of reading him. For all he knew, he was seething with fury, or jumping with joy. He approched The Doctor and stood before him for a moment or two, as if to size him up.

He then crossed his arm over his chest, his hand in a fist in salute.

"You have done well, Doctor, Of the Medusa Cascade. You have stopped both Humans and Ice Warriors from making terrible mistakes this day, and for that, I thank you"

"I am sure you had much more to do with that than I did, seeing as you forced everyone to surrender," he replied. That was the stark reality of it. Were it not for the Grand Marshal, he would be dead.

"Perhaps that is true, however you delayed them both, long enough for me to arrive, even though moving the ship slowed me down."

"I did not see much of another option I'm afraid," said The Doctor.

"We warriors all do what we must," Skaldak replied.

"That actually reminds me," The Doctor started, "why did you force a surrender? The last time I saw you, you were quite... bloodthirsty. I don't believe I have ever heard of you being merciful." He did not mean it as the insult it likely sounded like, however his statement was true. Skaldak had many legends surrounding him, and in each it ended with him coated in the blood of his enemies. Why had today been any different? He heard the Ice Warriors mouth click uncomfortably.

"This conflict benefitted no one. All it did was diminish my people, whose numbers grow smaller each day. We must pick our battles more wisely or we will fight ourselves into extinction. As much as I want to rip Kate Stewart limb from limb and paint my armor with her blood, doing so will only cause more conflict, and cost more lives we cannot afford. Maybe one day I will give Kate the death she deserves, but that day is not today. I will find our people a new home first, then perhaps will be the time for vendettas." It was a simple, logical statement, yet The Doctor found himself surprised all the same. The Ice Warriors practically lived for war and conquest. Their desire for it was second only to the Sontaurins. Yet here stood a creature who had learned that, just sometimes, war was not the best answer to a problem.

"You are quite a different man than the Skaldak I met aboard the Firebird all those years ago. I remember a Skaldak willing to destroy an entire world out of grief," The Doctor replied.

"That was a long time ago, and a philosophy gifted to me by a young girl that day still rings true, and perhaps overrides a need for vengeance now." Was he referring to Clara?

"What philosophy is that?"

"Just as my daughter would not have wanted me to inflict the same pain of losing a child on millions of others, she would not want me to endanger the survival of my people for petty revenge." The Doctor smiled at that. If one as brutal as Skaldak could grow wiser, than perhaps anyone could.

"Will you be able to take off? Things looked quite bad in there," The Doctor asked, genuinely concerned.

"Yes, we will. We can make the necessary repairs at one of the few stations left on Mars. I am confident we will make it that far."

"Good, good luck to you, Grand Marshal, and may your people find the home they seek," The Doctor said. He hoped they would, because he truly was the only being in the universe that understood how they felt. Perhaps he would find his one day as well. He turned to leave, so he could return to Sarah Jane, however, Skaldak's voice stopped him.

"Doctor... I have one last thing to discuss with you." The Time Lord spun on his heel, a bit curious now as to what the giant had to say.

"When I was imprisoned, I had dreams, strange dreams of a great war that had yet to pass. At first I believed them only that, dreams, until I saw visages of the Great Destroyers, and your strange blue box. Such fighting and blood followed, I cannot describe it. It was so fierce." The Doctor's blood ran cold. The Great Destroyers were the Ice Warriors name for the Dalaks. "A war is coming Doctor, a war I fear will involve you. Tread carefully in the coming days."

The Doctor immediately wondered what this meant. Dreams were a thing he normally ignored as only such, but something he could not touch on sent a shiver up his spine. Something told him Skaldak was right to think them more than just nightmares of a prisoner. Not to mention, he had learned not to ignore the signs of Dalaks when he saw them. He would investigate this... there was a secret here and he would find out what.

"Farewell Doctor, may your battles be magnificent, and your death glorious," Skaldak finished. That was one of the highest Saurian complements, and The Doctor took it as such.

"Safe travels, Skaldak," he replied. The Ice Warrior gave one final salute, before marching back up the ramp, into the Aries Dawn from whence he came.

The Doctor took his leave, heading back to Sarah Jane and Kate. He knew many times in the future, he and the Ice Warriors would be enemies. He would foil plans, stop invasions; even prevent them from turning Earth into their new home just as he had today. Yet still, at least this group, he wished well. They deserved a home just as anyone else did.

Upon arriving back with Sarah Jane and Kate, they waited for the ship to take off. He wanted to be sure that it did, and he meant to see that it did not get shot down one more time. He was not sure exactly how much he trusted Kate in that regard.

By the time the ship was ready for takeoff, night had fallen across the field. They knew the moment was nigh when the ship abruptly lit, its cold blue lights blinding in the darkness. The Doctor could feel the rumble of the engines reverberate through the ground, and he heard the roar of them turn on. The remaining stabilizer arms extended out like the legs of a spider, lifting the ship from the soil. They retracted once more allowing The Aries Dawn to hover for a few seconds on its own.

During this time, The Doctor turned to Kate, his voice barely audible above the deafening engines, but she heard him.

"If you shoot them down, I will ruin you," were his only words to her. Her face remained expressionless.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me," he replied.

The Aries Dawn Hovered for a few seconds more, the blue lights flashing in the darkness. Suddenly, it shot off, leaving a light trail behind it as it rose into the sky, disappearing into the dark horizon. With that, the Ice Warriors were gone, finally leaving Earth for the first time in three decades.

* * *

The loud grinding permeated the Tardis as the Time Roader moved up and down, shining its yellow light across the room. The Doctor tapped buttons and pulled switches, ever the expert pilot. With a dull thunk, the Tardis landed.

"Here we are, November 20th, 2014, 12:30 in the afternoon tomorrow, outside of London's top medical center, though I suspect your wound is well on its way to healing by now," The Doctor called out. Tom McGrewin stood from the corner chair, rotating his shoulder uncomfortably. Sarah was at his side, changing his bandages before he left.

"It doesn't hurt as much as it did to start. I must admit, whatever you have in your medicine chest really does the trick," the detective replied. He walked over to the old Time Lord, standing in front of him. "I will say this is the most fun I've had getting shot in a long time."

Although he didn't want to, The Doctor smiled a bit.

"I will say this, you're not as much of an idiot as I thought you were when we met."

"I have a feeling that's the most I'll get out of you so I'll take it. Thank you for the adventure in any case, even though I'm sure I'm getting fired today," he replied.

"Your precinct received a letter this morning from Unit that you were assisting your Queen and Country with stopping a terrorist plot, signed by Kate Stewart. Actually you're set to be promoted with honors when you go into work," The Doctor shrugged.

"I... didn't know Kate would do that," he trailed off.

"I said it was signed by Kate, I didn't say she wrote it."

McGrewin nodded knowingly, with a smirk.

"You're welcome," the Time Lord finished.

"I guess I should be leaving then. Take care of yourself Doctor. And you too Miss Smith," the detective said. Sarah Jane walked up to him, and careful to avoid his shoulder wound, wrapped her arms around him.

"Take care Tom. Thank you for your help," she said kindly.

"It was a pleasure. Terrifying and I never want to do it again, but a pleasure," he chuckled. They parted and he opened the Tardis door. He turned one more time and waved goodbye, before shutting the door, leaving the Tardis behind.

Sarah Jane turned about, looking at him, and she walked forward.

"So... where to? Home I take it?" The Doctor asked a bit awkwardly. Truthfully, he didn't want her to go. He never liked watching any of his friends walk out those doors, least of all her.

"I owe you an apology, Doctor. I... over reacted about McGrewin's injuries, and I'm sorry. I... guess I've carried things around a bit more than I should have, and it got the better of me. I'm sorry. I should not have lashed out at you," his companion finally said. He waved his hand flippantly.

"Already forgiven and forgotten. After all, I could have been a bit more receptive to your ideas... and maybe not as harsh," he admitted. That was as close to an apology as she was going to get. "As I asked before, home? Or somewhere else?"

"I think we both know the answer to that," she replied with a shake of her head. He caught that light smile of hers.

"Richter Cliffs it is! I hear there very nice in 2045, right before the mass landslide buries all the diamonds for nine thousand years," he returned.

"Don't you start! You know what I mean!" she chuckled.

"Oh come on! You know it will be fun! Look at you! You haven't had this much fun in years!" he reasoned. He almost had her, he knew it. He just had to say the right thing.

"Yes almost dying has been a blast," she said sarcastically, with another light chuckle, but then her tone became serious, "but really, we've talked about this before..."

"And?" he shrugged.

"And I told you why we couldn't do this anymore!"

"And all of those reasons are invalid now!" he shouted excitedly.

"How so? They seem perfectly valid to me." she responded.

"Look, you said it yourself, Lucas is in collage, Sky is in the most prestigious boarding school in the United Kingdom. Your friends are off consulting with Unit, and that computer of yours will take care of the house. You have no responsibilities in your retirement, it's high time you do what all early retirees do, and see the world. Many of them. In the future. With me! We can even take those embarrassing vacation photos people torture their guests with!" The photos might be the tipping point. He caught her choke back an involuntary laugh.

"You're not going to make this easy are you?" Sarah asked.

"No! I'm not! Besides, one of your main complaints has always been that some part of you thought it would never end and you had a hard time adjusting back to life. You know it will this time! And you can prepare for it. Just like..." she cut him off.

"Going on vacation," she finished for him, "I even know how you're going to try to sell this to me, like a cheap car salesman. But you're ignoring one glaring issue... I'm older now."

"So? So am I! I don't care about that!" The Doctor said bluntly.

"It's different for you. You get a new body, I don't. I'm middle aged Doctor, I'm not a doe eyed twenty year old anymore," she said seriously.

"That's actually a relief! I've had enough young people for a while!" he exclaimed, " their exhausting! 'Oh I'm going to go have hanky panky with my husband in the Tardis and give birth to a half Time Lord assassin you'll marry later'" he said in a mock feminine tone, "or 'Oh look at that Time Crack, let me touch it and get erased from the universe,' or, and this one is my favorite, 'there's a deactivated Dalak over there, let me touch it and wake it up!'"

"You're companions really haven't done all those things over the years, have they?" she asked holding back a laugh.

"That and more. Besides, you kept up just fine."

"The years have been kinder to you than they have me I'm afraid, you don't seem to be feeling their effects at all," she replied.

"No...they haven't," he replied, his voice suddenly grim, "I have marked the passing of my people... I have watched war burn a whole galaxy from the inside out. I have seen my friends and companions die or leave, and I've been forced to make so many decisions I did not have the right to make that... I'm not even sure whether I have done what is right or what is wrong most of my life. I've lost more than any single person should..." he trailed off, his eyes growing distant, "they have not been kind... not at all."

"Doctor, I didn't mean..." she started gently.

"I know what you meant," he returned, "but... I feel as though, out of all my companions, you perhaps understand me the most. Maybe it's a side effect of seeing so many versions of me, or maybe it is that incredible sense of empathy you have always possessed. Either way, it would be nice to be around someone who understands me."

"Doctor... let me ask you something, and promise you'll answer me honestly."

"Anything, Sarah," he answered.

"How much of this is because you are alone? Because you have no one travelling with you?" she asked. It was a valid question, one he often did not like to face.

"A good deal, I will admit. But Sarah, you know me, and no matter how alone I am, I don't ask just anyone to come with me. But I'm asking you. You once told me the Tardis always needs to have a Smith on board. It has been Smith-less for too long, and I would quite like to have the original article around... even if it is just for a few trips."

She just looked at him for what felt like forever.

"You need to take me home, Doctor," she said sullenly. A great sadness settled in his hearts. At least he had tried.

Then... a wry, mischievous grin spread across her face.

"I need to pack a bag or two before I go, I'm hardly prepared for a trip."

The sadness lifted like a bird flying skyward and he feared his smile may snap his face in half.

"Really? You mean it? You'll come?" he asked just to make sure.

"I will," she grinned, "you're right. It is high time for a vacation. But I have one condition." His hands were already a blur across the Tardis' many levers and switches.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I am not you're assistant, or your companion or your lacky. I am your friend and traveling partner, and that is what I want to be referred as, your partner. Which means I get a say in the decisions we make. This is not a Doctatership anymore." He did not take long to think it over.

"Alright, Partner. Fifty fifty split it is," he answered. Most companions, he may have refused that request but not Sarah Jane.

With a dull thud, they landed.

"I'll be right back, just need to grab a few things," she said rushing to the doors. She flung them open, and just stood there. He repressed a smirk. "Really Doctor? Aberdeen Scotland? You're a git," she said with a laugh.

"Why whatever do you mean? Isn't this where you live?" he asked in mock surprise. She only narrowed her eyes at him.

"You know very well where I live," she said dryly

"Joking! I'm just joking, don't get mad," he laughed. He didn't want to push her too far. He toggled a few buttons and ripped back the big lever, sending them in motion again.

After another minute or so, they landed again.

"I swear if I don't see my house outside..." she started, and hesitantly pushed open the door. She relaxed a bit once open.

"Happy?" he asked.

"Very! I'll be right back, I just need to grab a few things and set to home defence mode," she chattered excitedly.

"Don't forget the sonic lipstick!" he shouted as she left, "you can plug it into the Tardis and update it with all the software modifications I've made throughout the years!"

He barely heard her shout an answer back from outside. He moved around the control console a bit, so full of nervous energy. The Doctor and Sarah Jane back together again. Who would have thought? His concerns had seemingly melted away, although they still poked at the back of his mind. Lost Gallifrey, dreams of Dalaks... neither bode well for his future, but with Sarah Jane by his side, things could not help but look bright.

Ten minutes passed before his oldest friend returned, carrying two suit cases and a duffel bag, with a light shining in her eyes he had not seen in a very long time.

"Alright all packed. I just need to plug in the lipstick, and have you configure my cell phone for time travel, so i can call my kids, and we're off. is set, and I had him send an email to anyone who needs to know that I am going on an extended holiday."

"Excellent, take your pick of the bedrooms, they've all been redecorated, but they're in the same place," he answered, shutting the Tardis doors behind her.

"I think I'll take the one across from the pool this time," she muttered, obviously thinking out loud. Meanwhile, he shifted back to the console, giving the time roader a loving tap on the way by.

"Would you like to do the honors Ms. Smith?" he asked motioning to the big lever. She laid down her bags and moved next to him.

"How about together?" she said with a big, charming smile.

"I concur," he replied. They both placed their right hand on the leaver, "on three. One,"

"Two," she answered, her voice trembling with excitement.

"Three!" they both shouted, and pulled the lever back, sending The Doctor and Sarah Jane hurtling through time and space once again.

* * *

High above, on the rooftop of 36 Bannerman road, stood a figure, unseen by all, even in the broad light of day. Humans noticed so little, it was almost pathetic. Draped in a black waist coat that would have been at home in Victorian London, he only watched. He saw the blue police box land in the back yard of the house next door, and that woman run out acting like a ridiculous school girl. How touching Sarah Jane Smith and The Doctor's reunion must have been.

Perhaps she did not know the monster he truly was, the blight that was any Time Lord who freely walked the cosmos. Or maybe she did know and did not care, which made her just as guilty.

He saw her reemerge, carrying her bags. He had conned yet another into his company, like a spider luring a fly into his web. What empty promise had he made? What sweet nothing did he whisper in her ear? Fame perhaps? Fortune? Adventure beyond her most creative dreams? All were the tools of the master manipulator The Doctor.

He heard the grinding of the ship, and saw it wink out of existence as though it had never been.

"Yes Doctor enjoy yourself now, for you have no idea what comes for you," the man's aristocratic voice whispered.

He held up his wrist, upon which was a strange metal bracelet adorned with many buttons and switches: a vortex manipulator to those with any technical knowledge. He quickly tapped a few with his other hand, and with a zap of white, electric light, he too disappeared, leaving Bannerman road quiet and empty once more.


End file.
